virtue

Never Meet Your Heros

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I have lost all of my heroes. The expression, “Never meet your heroes, because they’re sure to disappoint you,” describes the painful realization that those great people you imagined are not as special as you believed they were.  It could be the letdown a friend had when he heard Matt Walsh speak.  It could be a family that learned their eldest brother was cheating on his wife for many years and was not some image of virtue.  For me it was a process and a very long grinding away of faith in these figures.

I was never one for human idols.  I never put posters of celebrity faces on my bedroom wall and would never be as impressed with figures like Ravi Zacharias as some of my friends.  It wasn’t a religious thing nor something just to be ornery.  I simply didn’t have a feeling of awe about these personalities that were mid.  The people I most admired tended to be local—my blue collar dad, my missionary cousin, or that perfect girl I would marry some day.  But time has removed all from the pedestals.

Those women of my youth would end up as the cheating wife or more interested in status than my sincerity.  My dad no longer looks like that man I remember who could carry me on his shoulders (with me hanging on for death life) up a silo ladder, and that zealousness of the ‘compassionate’ types tends to morph into a noxious ideological alignment that is really anything but they profess.  They say that they want the Kingdom, but have replaced faith in God with fraudulent human institutions.

And I’m not just talking about the apologists for CAM in the wake of the Jeriah Mast and years of coverup aftermath.  “Oh, but this is an organization that does such good!”  What I’m talking about is something fully revealed since the DOGE ax has fallen on USAID.  I grew up believing in the strict separation of church and state—that a colonial expansion of Christianity was tainted and this at completely odds with the teachings of Jesus about His kingdom not being of this world.  

My views have certainly evolved—having left my religious cloister—but I’m still appalled by the thoughtlessness of people who I had once thought were smart and uncompromised.

Banality of Evil: When Ends Justify the Means 

The Anabaptists, after the disaster of Münster, had committed to a quiet life of separation.  It is why those in Old Order groups have refused participation in Social Security and other kinds of government benefits.  Mutual aid should be voluntary and Christian charity is not obtained through coercion.  Sure, the power of the state is alluring, that temptation (driven by our ego) to rule over others because we know what is best or they are undeserving of the resources they have—I have had many of those “if I were king” moments—but there is no stopping point when you fail to resist the siren song.

Left-wing politics always clothe themselves in a kind of compassion.  Surely you will not oppose helping these children, right?  And I am pragmatic to the extent I’m glad starving children are fed by any means.  But opening the Pandora’s box of leftist means is always a slippery-slope to more use of state power and, inevitably, to leftist utopian cost-benefit analysis where everyone who opposes us is a literal Nazi and, therefore, we’re justified to stop them with violence.  When coercion is allowed as a means of obtaining the ends we desire there is no stopping point.

The worst form of evil has good intentions.  It is that of those who imagine themselves as the hero of their own narrative and thus allowed to bend the rules.  This explains the extreme narcissism of Luigi Mangione who saw himself as a worthy judge of a father of two and a husband to a practicing physical therapist.  There was no need for this leftist murderer to look inward, he had completely externalized evil and turned other men into caricature representatives of truly complex multi-faceted problems.  When the ends can justify the means we’ll justify any means.

Pastor Jim Jones preaches his counterfeit Gospel before being abandoned by the US government and having to free his cult from bondage with some poison laced Kool-aid.

Seeing someone I thought was a Christian missionary lament how the United States had “abandoned” them was a reminder of how the great have fallen.  There was not a shred of gratitude expressed towards the American taxpayers who financed them nor acknowledgement of the misappropriation of funds that has wearied voters to foreign aid.  But more stunning to me was unholy alliance between this person of faith and agencies of US imperialism.  Since when has the love of Jesus become an extension of the US regime abroad?  Are they of the kingdom, as they proclaim, or agents of empire?

USAID, despite the name, is certainly not a charitable organization and was formed in 1961, at the height of the Cold War, with an aim of promoting the interests of the US political regime.  That’s fine.  But it has long ago gone off the rails even as far as what it was originally imagined.  The Soviet Union had fallen and the Federal agency created to oppose it morphed from something most would support into a beacon of wokeness—pushing transgenderism and abortion.

Break the Yoke of Fraudulence 

The reason why USAID is being dismantled is because we can’t sort the legitimate from illegitimate function of the agency.  Sure, it may help people in need, but funding it also is enabling of evil and maintained through a system of coercion we call taxes.  Anything good that it did can be done through other means.  This functional fixedness of those who depend of government, especially on the part of those professing Christ, makes me wonder where their faith lies and what their actual mission is.

The merger of a Christian charitable cause with government doesn’t purify government—it taints the witness:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?  Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?  What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17 NIV)

The accusations of “Christian nationalism” against those who want a government that performs basic functions were always just a smear by those in alliance with imperialism and Godless globalism.  While I’m not a fan of God and country, at least the flag waving religious patriot knows there is a difference between their Christian mission and secular state.  The left, by contrast, confuses these categories and would have social program replace true charity and community aid.  In one case you have those who may tend to overreverence nation, but in the other there are those who truly represent empire and yet tell us they their only  citizenship is the kingdom of heaven.

The truth is that the ‘Christian’ left is simply the left merely wearing the words of Christ as a disguise for ideological agenda.  Those decrying the reduction of empire and return to responsible governance never said thank you to those funding their do-gooderism.  It was, for them, all about holding those “chief seats in the synagogue” and their own glory as humanitarians.  They may speak against Trump, but then have never uttered a word against the waste, fraud and abuse that has made these broad sweeping cuts popular with common people.

The true Christian spirit is that of a Federal employee who told me about the enormous amount of inefficiency and waste in his own agency and—while making no profession of faith—supports the effort of DOGE knowing it may impact his employment.  That, to me, is someone who understands self-sacrifial love more than someone feeding the poor on another person’s dime and then going to social media to complain when their funds are cut.  They’re grandstanding.  While my Federal employee friend is a truly humble public servant who is grateful and not biting the hand that feeds him.

None of this to say this “abandoned” former hero of mine is a bad person.  They clearly are using their abilities to help other people in desperate need.  I applaud that.  And yet their public statement betrays.  There is an attitude or spirit there that is different from Christ.  I would much rather they just be a secular humanist—subscribed to partisan leftist politics—and own it.  They should just admit that they’ve abandoned faith in Jesus and are looking for a worldly system.  Judas Iscariot is the patron saint of faithless social justice, guilt trips and envy—when you betray your calling just own it.

The Shocking Truth About Diversity and Strength

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Composite materials are stronger than their component parts.  When two or more materials of unique strengths are blended together the result can be a composite that has the ideal characteristics of all the parts.  This is what makes concrete and rebar a formidable pair.  The combination gives both the compressive strength of concrete and also the tensile strength of the steel.  It is inarguable that diversity is not strength or at least when it comes to material science.

However, as all topics go, it does not end there.  Boeing, like all builders of commercial airliners, has two primary goals (besides safety) in their designs: Lightweight and reducing costs.  One of their innovations is the use of carbon fiber in their aircraft.  The problem with carbon fiber is that it reacts with or is corrosive of aluminum.  For this reason, they must use a separating layer of expensive titanium as the solution to this bad material pairing.  It works in this case, but diversity is also a source of conflict and potential systemic failure.

Diversity: Good and Bad

First, the good.  We’re all unique.  I go to work with a group of people with slightly different abilities and backgrounds from my own.  It is what allows us to specialize and thus be stronger as a team than if we tried to do it all by ourselves.  I would rather Patty do the bookwork, the members of our sales team talk to our customers and stick to my role of designing trusses.  This is where diversity is a great strength.

Furthermore, men and women are different, both physically and otherwise, which can make them an ideal pair.  Only a male and female can produce offspring together.  We can argue over the particulars or against sexist generalities, but there is something special about any diversity of characteristics that can lead to the creation of new life.  It is ideal in other ways as well.  One of this special partnership can provide and protect from outside threats, the other can nurture their children and organize their shared space.  It can be the best of human arrangements.

Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad, and what can be the best of things can also be the worst.  The gender wars, that endless battle for control between abusive men and their feminist counterparts, is how the most wonderful kind of diversity can go very badly and be anything but strength.  Diversity is, therefore, also a source of deep division and strife.  What can make a strong composite can also lead to corrosive interactions and unwanted drama.  Sparks flying.

Homogeneity is our strength?

While the West, the ‘woke’ Anglosphere in particular, is obsessed with “diversity and inclusion” as the highest order of priority, not all in the world do.  

Japan, for example, is very happy to remain Japanese and feels no need to host foreign refugees on their own ancestral lands.  This homogeneity of their culture and ethnicity does seem to help to reduce the friction in their society.  Crime is extremely low.  During the disaster at Fukushima older engineers were willing to sacrifice themselves for sake of their younger kinfolk.  And there’s just a sort of harmony that exists with everyone pulling in basically the same direction.

This has never really been the case in the United States   There were wars between the natives and new arrivals.  With every new immigrant wave arriving there was mistrust and contempt between these groups.  It is what led to sentiments like this:

Only a damn fool can expect the people of one tradition to feel at ease when their country is flooded with hordes of foreigners who — whether equal, superior, or inferior biologically — are so antipodal in physical, emotional, and intellectual makeup that harmonious coalescence is virtually impossible. Such an immigration is death to all endurable existence and pollution and decay to all art and culture. To permit or encourage it is suicide.

H.P. Lovecraft

It is notable that Lovecraft, the famed atheist writer of existential horror, had his strong opinions about various races, including Italians and Jews.  His racism, xenophobia, disgust over the intermixing of people or fear of contamination, has the markings of an obsessive-compulsive disorder.  And yet he was not entirely wrong about the “melting pot” being chaotic and creating a place that’s lacking social cohesion.

It is no big surprise that after a decades long assault on policing and national symbols that, with the ‘woke’ takeover, military and law enforcement recruitment is falling off a cliff.  Nobody, in their right mind, would ever sacrifice themselves for a country or cause that doesn’t represent them and their own values.  Participation requires buying into the common vision and is not possible when there’s competition for that spot.  Nobody wants to die for those who lack appreciation or are completely divorced from what matters to them.

Unequally Yoked: Understanding Biblical Warnings

There is a sort of distain, even amongst professing Christians, towards the Old Testament law.  The various cleansing rituals, dietary prohibitions and other restrictions can seem to be quiet arbitrary our modern ears.  Why does it matter if we mix several materials in our clothing, plant diverse seeds or crossbreed different animals?   

First, I believe this was more about teaching a concept of Holiness or being set apart for good.  

Second, it is a completely practical point about our greater potential when being of the same mind or spirit:

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

(Amos 3:3 KJV)

Third, this principal didn’t end in the Old Testament:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

(2 Corinthians 6:14‭-‬16 KJV)

The whole point of Old Testament law was to reinforce the things that St Paul explains above, we cannot expect good results when we are paired with those who are pulling in a completely different direction.  It’s simply reality, we need to have a boundary between ourselves and those who have nothing in common and want to destroy us.

Is Diversity Our Strength?

It depends.

I don’t think complete segregation of sexes or making all people androgynous is a good solution to gender difference.  Nor should we erase subcultures in the name of unity either.  We want diversity, we want people of different strengths.  But there needs to be some kind of common identity or bonding agent, otherwise we end up with a bunch of competing identities and a fight for the supreme position.  It takes a powerful adhesive to make composites work and this can mean a national identity that overrides all others.

Christ: The Ultimate Bonding Agent 

All composite materials rely on some kind of bonding agent to work.  And early Christians, likewise, were also trying to bridge some vast cultural differences.  In fact, much of the struggle, in the early church, came down to the difference between the Jewish born and Gentile coverts.  Should those newly converted, from non-Jewish background, be required to follow same requirements of faith or be exempted?

 There was plenty of compromise, a new vision (Acts 10:28) and joint identity formed in Christ:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

(Ephesians 2:11‭-‬18 NIV)

It is Christ who eliminates old social barriers:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

(Galatians 3:26‭-‬29 NIV)

So, diversity, if bonded in Christian love, can be an amazing strength.  But, when lacking any kind of joint identity it is a horror show, it is corrosive.  It leads to a bloody and violent competition for supremacy between rival groups.  Without Christ it becomes man versus woman, black versus white, class versus class, and there is no strength in this kind of arrangement.  The ‘strength’ of diversity is only possible when all, despite differences, are seeking after the exact same overall goal.

It is okay to have our own separate identities, even to celebrate our own cultural or ethnic heritage. But, when are being black or white, male or female, rich or poor, puts us at enmity with each other, when it is corrosive and causes is to react with hostility to those of a different perspective, then it must be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and repented of rather than to be a source of pride. This is the higher order priority: “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” (Romans 14:19 NIV) And, “over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:14 NIV)