CAUCUS THREADS AND THE RULE OF LAW

Recently I was reading a particular denominations Caucus thread and noticed that a particular FReeper’s posts were being removed. As I read the comments to the removed posts I came to realize that this FReeper was raised and spent some time in their adulthood in that particular denomination. At the same time I noticed that a self proclaimed Hindu was posting on that thread without recrimination.

One of the great accomplishments of Western Civilization is the concept of the “rule of law”. The Magna Carta was perhaps the first document in early European Civilization to elucidate the concept:

The rules on the Religion Forum are set, no doubt, to provide some order to the discussions between members of different denominations. So let’s review the guidelines for Caucus threads:

As I researched this further I found this website, http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/faq/Rule_of_Law.shtml, that gave a list of the elements of the rule of law:

The rule covering the Caucus threads on the Religion Forum would be considered the law of the land. As we see above the law must contain certain elements before it can be considered to fall under the rule of law. The question at hand is how is one defined as a “member of the caucus”. It seems to me that membership is determined by each denominations definition of membership. So long as the rule is enforced according to a particular denominations criteria for membership then that rule would be following the rule of law. If the rule is enforced arbitrarily and Freepers are denied their liberty to post to those threads despite falling under the denominations own definition of membership then that law has failed to meet the criteria of the rule of law. So back to our case study. Here’s the relevant thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2549830/posts

As one reads through the thread one first notices that a self proclaimed and well known Hindu was posting to the thread who had not been invited per the guidelines set by the Religion Moderator. In fact, while the former member was being discriminated against the Hindu was able to post freely. One FReeper, seemingly oblivious, asks the Hindu if the FReeper whose posts were removed was a member of that particular denomination.

What’s even more interesting is that this particular denomination’s dogma claims that a person who has gone through what they describe as their Sacraments of initiation will forever be a member of that sect. It’s my understanding that these include: Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, and Communion. This doctrine in this sect goes by the name: Semel Catholicus Semper Catholicus

The irony is rich in that a thread about a Professor who is being deprived of his rights and livelihood by a University who is violating the rule of law is used to deprive Freepers of their liberty to post their views to that thread. It seems to me that the Caucus label is meant to provide a forum for a particular denomination to discuss theological issues within that denomination not as a means to deny other Freepers their liberty. The article posted does not meet that criteria.

As we all know the Left in this country is set upon destroying the rule of law. They wish that only a few elites self chosen be able to make decisions against the will of the people and outside the laws of the land. It seems to me that if we are to reverse this course we must first police those who proclaim to be conservative on Western values.

If we look at the elements of the rule of law as put forth above, we can clearly see that these have been violated in the case at hand. If this particular denomination has determined that all who have gone through the Sacraments of initiation are forever a member of said denomination, they cannot then deny those people the liberty to post on their caucus. To do so is a clear contradiction and violates the rule of law.

This forum is an important tool to help reverse the destruction of the rule of law and to do so it must lead by example. The spirit of the Caucus label has been violated in this case. The rule was arbitrarily applied to some and not others, the members contradicted their own dogma to deny a Freeper their liberty, and the Caucus label was applied outside the spirit of the rule.

Explain, plz.

In 25 words or less (okay, would you believe 2,500 words or less?)

A house burns down. Did God burn it down? I would say, yeah, in a way.

But also, it burned down because of processes most of which we know something about, involving so-called red-ox reactions, and maybe somebody leaving too many oily rags in the garage, or forgetting to charge the fire-extnguisher or whatever.

It is NOT meaningless to speak of the forgetfulness of persons, and of the (created) nature of things, especially of their chemistry as secondary causes. That doesn't so much make them any LESS a cause of the fire as it makes them a different KIND of cause of the fire -- different from God who is the "first cause" of everything.

In His mercy, God made some things predictable as secondary causes. It is merciful because the predictability enables us to take responsibility, of a kind, for what happens.

If God were, so to speak, in the habit of starting fires at random, it would make no sense for me to dispose of oily rags and to keep flammable things away from the wood heater. In fact it's not clear that "flammable things" would be a meaningful phrase, since things would burst into flame at random and not "according to their natures" as one might say.

Okay. That's in the realm of "natural philosophy". I admit eagerly that it's a jump, but I think we can say an analogous thing about grace. And I think a lot of non-Catholics would vehemently disagree. (I am very open to correction on this.)

Mr. Paige, at the end of the fourth grade Sunday School year took us all down to Snouder's Drug Store and bought us ice cream sodas -- just because he liked us!

The next year, Mrs. Lamb, who did not like us, did NOT take us down to Snouder's for ice cream sodas. She said we had not been remarkably good, and so did not deserve sodas.

(IN passing, I will admit, with pride, that we gave Mrs. Lamb a VERY rough ride. We KNEW she didn't like or love us. She was ALL Law.)

I was in 4th grade 53 years ago. In the meantime I have been a DRE, and a diocesan resource (Episcopal Church) for "religious ed." (as we called him ....)

Every time I addressed a new group of Sunday School teachers I told them about Mr. Paige. I told them about the Gospel of Love. I told them that if they did not bask in the Love of Jesus and were not willing to be conduits of that love, they would not be objective RE teachers, but if they DID bask and DID offer themselves, even if they failed (I remember not one thing from 4th grade Sunday School, but I remember the love of Mr. Paige) they would triumph.

I maintain, therefore, that by grace given to him by God, Mr. Paige was a secondary cause of grace. I maintain it is right for me to thank Gold for Mr. Paige, and it is also right for me to thank Mr. Paige for w=the grace he shared with us.

AND this kind of thinking finally touches on what we feelthy papists do with the Saints. And the objection seems to be that since God is first cause we must not pay any respect to secondary causes.

Now, whether it's germane or not is unclear, but it IS important to me that those Islamic scholars who understood the idea of first cause and secondary causes were persecuted and their thinking was condemned. And in the article to which I linked earlier there is an excellent (excellently wrong, that is) quote from a Muslim thinker (If you'll pardon the contradiction) who says, in the manner of the philosopher Hume, that fire does not burn cloth. We see fire, then we see the cloth turn to ash. Allah burns the cloth.

WE think God has constrained Himself to be in some sense predictable and to work with and through intermediary causes. THEY think it is outrageous to think of God constraining Himself in any way.

So, we end up with natural science because WHILE REMAINING CHRISTIANS, we think that God is mercifully consistent in His use of secondary causes. But for THEM the very idea of secondary causes is blasphemous. And so in the end, it is we who teach them natural science, which their theology makes difficult for them to learn.

By rejecting secondary causes, by making everything a matter of God's will (or what we would call 'whim') they end up like many non-Catholics here, not only unwilling but unable REALLY to argue, because they do not (as we would say it) understand what it means that Logos is at the heart of God and intimately involved with His creative act.

So here, non-Catholics gather and snicker, like third grade boys who have found a copy of Penthouse, over Catholic teaching. But their retort is not so much retort as incantation: the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple ....

I would say God's love and the humility He shows in loving His creation is appalling. It is stupefying, mind-boggling, to conceive of so great a Love that would stoop to work through some creature begotten in a moment of sweaty passion in some lousy bed in a tributary state on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean.

It is that appalling love that we celebrate when we say our Rosaries or our "Memorare's". To understand Philippians ... well it's really beyond any of us this side of the Jordan. But I (most certainly not the Lord) would say that the Incarnation is the perfection of the loving self-abasement of God the Most Holy Trinity, each Person of which from before all worlds and unto ages of ages has always given all He had for the other persons.

So, in the realm of natural sciences, God's willing submission to regularity in acting through secondary causes has given us the mastery He promised in Eden - at least in principle.

And in the realm of Grace, each Person of the Most Holy Trinity abases himself and draws other created persons into the economy and distribution of Grace -- as secondary causes.

Have I answered your question?

Please, what's the false dichotomy I'm ensnared it or playing with?

Where I grew up, there was a wonderful old man, Hoffman Nickerson. His son was born in 1918 so you can imagine his age.

He went to my church and it was only at his funeral that I realized he was a small man, because his casket was so small. In life he filled every room he entered.

His photo was on the Miscellany page of Life magazine one year. He was the quintessential Harvard alum of his age - boater hat, walrus mustache, admirable belly, silver hair.

One day I was riding my bicycle and I passed him and stopped to pay my respects. He asked what I had been reading and I said that I had just finished Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," a cycle of Arthurian Poems. He did me the kindness of commending me -- and correcting my pronunciation. He really was a grand old unregenerate Episcopalian whose kind has vanished from among us like the elves of middle earth.

It was said of him in response to a question from his' son, who became a politician, but not a really bad guy, "Father's knowledge, though vast, yet has its limits."

Well, my knowledge is less vast than that of Hoffman Nickerson, and it certainly has its limits. Help me out here.

May God have mercy on his soul.

I think I can understand your sentiments.

I have some sympathy for them.

However, a few to several times in the first years of FR—fierce ugly chaos reigned enough to threaten the viability of the Religion Forum at all. Yet, how do you part Conservatives and their Christianity!

Thankfully, the current RM has had the Godly wisdom to come up with the different threads and it has helped a LOT.

It is not ideal. We are not ideal people and certainly not ideal Christians. It is a workable solution. I strongly support it.

The special thread designations are A VERY SMALL MINORITY of the whole group of Rel Forum threads.

And by far the vast majority of those are RC generated caucus threads.

So what. They need them to pontificate in a safe place—Good for them. When we Proddys need to, the possibility is there.

OPEN THREADS AFFORD PLENTY OF OPPORTUNITY TO GET AT EACH OTHER’S INTELLECTUAL/THEOLOGICAL THROATS! AND WE DO!

There’s plenty of freedom to dialogue with each other on the open threads. REALLY.

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