R J Rushdoony wrote a book-length meditation on the political implications of trinitarian Christianity, The One and the Many. Is reality ultimately singular? If so, monism makes sense, and we must all be One, subsumed into the Greater Whole, that entity that Hegel called "God walking through history," The State. Is reality ultimately plural? If so, then anarchy is the only way to go -- the "state of nature," with every man for himself. Both answer, Rushdoony said, are wrong. Reality is ultimately both singular and plural, since God Himself is simultaneously One and Three. Given this model, Christian nations have managed to simultaneously support form and freedom, individual and corporate concerns.
This explains in part the unceasing warfare of the God-haters on the normal family. Something about the marital union tells us something about God. Man and wife are simultaneously two, and one. As they delight in each other, and in their union, the individuality of each is sharpened, heightened, appreciated. Not subsumed. Not suppressed.
The 19th amendment disenfranchised the family, even as the 17th disenfranchised the states. If you are a God-hating statist, your preferred deity must be One, and rival allegiances, rival citizenships must be obliterated. If you are a Christian, with a healthy disrespect for the righteousness of man, then you will work to nurture multiple spheres of jurisdiction -- family, church, local governments. Home schooling is the deliberate and conscious repudiating of statism, the assertion that our children belong to God, not Caesar.
You offered, “Something about the marital union tells us something about God.” I will have to disagree with the line of reasoning, because marriage union is likened to our relationship with The Christ (not in sexual terms of course), but the relation of God’s three aspects to Himself is not comparable to marriage.
My idea seems to be consistent with yours but, maybe not. There is one reality. However, that reality, like the blind men describing an elephant, has many different ways to view it.
Outstanding line, RJR.
Good analogy. I find this thread to be stimulating, as well as a reminder of the Enemy we strive against, and the magnitude of this Enemy's insinuation into the fate of America, and mankind in general.
America is truly THE critical entity which must be preserved. And not just as some "shell" which becomes only a useful symbolic control mechanism, but in its true essence as a beacon for Individual Freedom, or at least man's aspiration towards that.
The idea of America is bigger than the Founders' words, and it's also bigger than our own petty, individual conceits, wherein so many of us want to conform it to our own subjective, biased, imperfect concept of what Liberty really is.
Liberty is for ALL, and each person is entitled to pursue their own vision of that Liberty. I try to pursue my version of Liberty without trampling on others'. Therein lies the challenge.
Anyway, thanks for an interesting thread everyone; it has reminded me to stay focused on the true Enemy: those thought patterns which would enslave us and/or others. Stimulation is Good.
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