War, Iran, and Just War Theory

As you probably know by now, there is a greater concentration of US armed forces in the Middle East today than at any time since 2003. Yet there has been no attack by any country there against America. There have been over time threats and attacks against US warships in the region prior to the military buildup, but with little consequence. 

From the Wall Street Journal, free link to article:
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-middle-east-us-military-7400d800?st=du2MWT&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The American forces are, of course, directed toward Iran. Last June, President Trump ordered US Air Force B-2 bombers to bomb Iran's nuclear-weapons production facilities, specifically those used to process uranium and related materials. This was done with great success, though whether those facilities can be reconstituted is uncertain. 

In early January, massive demonstrations against Iran's dictatorial regime began by Iranians began across the country. They continued for more than a month, although the regime suppressed them with increasing brutality; Britain's The Guardian reports 30,000 or more were killed. It was during those demonstrations that the American naval buildup began in the region. In early January 2026, Trump stated the U.S. was "locked and loaded and ready to go" to support protesters. No such action was taken, but the American buildup continued.

Presently, the US and Iran have delegations in Oman negotiating over the future of Iran's nuclear program. 

Iran and the United States have differing views over sanctions relief in talks to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, adding that new talks were planned in early March as fears of a military confrontation grow.

Iran and the U.S. renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme as the U.S. builds up its military capability in the Middle East, fuelling fears of a wider war.

Iran has threatened to strike U.S. bases in the Middle East if it is attacked by U.S. forces.

“The last round of talks showed that U.S. ideas regarding the scope and mechanism of sanctions relief differ from Iran’s demands. Both sides need to reach a logical timetable for lifting sanctions,” the official said.

“This roadmap must be reasonable and based on mutual interests.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Friday that he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.

The prospect of American war against Iran is real, though its probability can't be assessed with any degree of assurance. This essay is my assessment of the prospective war in the context of Just War Theory (JWT henceforth), a theological inquiry in Christianity going back at least to Saint Augustine, 354-430. It's most robust treatment was by St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, whose exposition was so thorough that it still forms the basis of modern theory. I have written over the years quite a bit about JWT in different contexts.

Today my main points are that going to war justly requires that at least these questions to be answered in the affirmative, below.

1. Is there just cause for the war?
2. Is the war authorized by proper authority?
3. Is it wise, as far as we can discern, to wage the war?
4. Is there a just objective to waging war?

First, though, there is the question whether the bombings last June of Iranian nuclear production constituted "war," or were they military violence of a kind other than war. I think the answer is straightforward, for here the key point is not what President Trump wanted to do (destroy those facilities) but the means he used to do it. And the means were exclusively military and violent, though of course there was no other way.

Throughout history, to attack another country with military forces has been seen unambiguously as an act of war. Just imagine that the evening of Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese government messaged President Roosevelt that the air raid against Pearl Harbor should not be construed as as act of war, but only as a warning to the US not to inhibit Japan's imperial plans in the Far East. "We are prepared to do more," Japan might have said, if the United States did not comply. What do you think Roosevelt's response would have been?

And that leads to a second key point: President Trump ordered the air raids, so he does not get to call it war or not-war. That is Iran's decision. To expect that Iran's regime and their Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) to think of the strikes as anything other than war is fantasy thinking. However, that is no change of status for them. Successive ayatollah regimes there since 1979 have affirmed they are at war with the United States, which they nickname "the Great Satan" of the world. 

And Iran has been carrying out war against us. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran and its network of proxy groups are responsible for the deaths of more than 1,000 American soldiers and civilians. These deaths have occurred through direct attacks, embassy bombings, hostage-taking, and, most prominently, through the training and arming of militants in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. A partial list is here. 

One thing we must understand, then, is not whether we should go to war with Iran, but that we have been at war with Iran since 1979, which they have prosecuted in both word and deed. The question is, then, do we continue with the status quo or do we prosecute the war with means directed toward an end that we select? 

1. Is there just cause for war? 

Since just cause (meaning justifiable cause) is a basic tenet of JWT, it must be addressed. However, as I explained just above, we already are at war with Iran, which it initiated based on Shia Islam eschatology. When presented with such a fait accompli, asking whether we should recognize and act on that fact has no basis. On Dec. 8, 1941, President Roosevelt did not ask the Congress to declare going to war with Japan, but simply to declare that the state of war already existed. 

The question, then, is what is the justifiable conduct of the war we are already in. That is a question of our objective to end the war and of the means we use to do so: What constitutes a level of violence inflicted upon Iran's regime and armed forces that is would effectively deter them from attacking Americans or especially developing and using atomic weapons? 

That is, from the Trump administration's view, the very point of the negotiations with Iran in Oman today, to achieve that goal without military force - but with its threat looming always in the background. The American objectives to end the war must be tightly defined to enable planners and assessors to determine what must be done to achieve them, though certainty will not be possible. 

2. Is the war authorized by proper authority?

The US Constitution clearly grants to Congress, and only to Congress, the authority to "declare war." However, the Constitution does not define  what constitutes a declaration. As then-Senator Joe Biden accurately explained in 2001, the Congress has declared war when the Congress thinks it has. Hence, he said, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force meets Constitutional muster as a declaration of war.

I happen to be a professor of Constitutional law. I'm the guy that drafted the Use of Force proposal that we passed. It was in conflict between the President and the House. I was the guy who finally drafted what we did pass. Under the Constitution, there is simply no distinction between a formal declaration of war, and an authorization of use of force. There is none for Constitutional purposes. None whatsoever. 

Constitutional lawyers over the decades have held that varying kinds of enabling acts, such as monetary appropriations for military action, have also amounted to Constitutional satisfaction and, at least, consent of the Congress to action ordered by the president, in whom the Constitution grants authority to conduct warfare.

Since the dawn of the American republic, the Congress and the presidents have generally agreed that the president may order US forces into combat against another nation, solely on his own authority, if and only if there is:

1. Imminent danger of attack from the other power, so imminent that time taken for Congressional deliberations would hinder defense against it, or,
2. To protect actual threat against US citizens abroad, or to rescue them from actual danger.  

At this time, neither of these are the case versus Iran, otherwise justified though it may be. My conclusion is that if President Trump or his successor decides to elevate military actions against Iran, Congressional authorization must be granted. 

3. Is it wise, as far as we can discern, to wage the war?

With war already a fact, the question is how to wage it wisely. However, this question is really one of setting the national objectives and predicting their consequences. But that will always be broadly uncertain and as cannot be well answered except retrospectively. But doing nothing or taking indecisive actions would be profoundly unwise. 

The question of wisdom must be faced because JWT has long held that waging war futilely is it self unjust, no matter the justification of other tenets of JWT. And that leads directly to the doctrine of proportionality, which so many people think means that we may not respond to an attack with more force than the attacker used. It absolutely does not mean that. 

As I explain in my essay, What does "Just War" mean?, 

The doctrine of proportionality is simply stated that the means of conducting the war must be proportionate to the goal for which the war is waged. Another way of looking at it is that while the just ends desired do not justify any means to attain them, they absolutely justify some means. The tenet of proportionality, then, is to assess what the justified means are, then employ those means and not the unjustified ones. ...

Hence, proportionality means that one cannot use more force than necessary, but must use all the force that is necessary.  It is critical to understand that proportionality does not mean, and never has meant, anything like a tit-for-tat response. 

4. Is there a just objective to waging war? 

At a minimum, a just objective to the war must be cessation of hostilities by Iran upon US persons and  facilities. That means to do that range from settling treaty agreements in Oman to using military force against Iran and its  proxy militias. I personally am sure that Iran will not ever cease its warfare against the US and our interests (and allies) unless the ayatollah regime is ended and the IRGC is destroyed. 

That is exactly is the reason that Congressional and public debate must be entered into sooner rather than later. Actively warring against Iran may be the right thing to do (or maybe the least-bad option) but it must be the right way politically, strategically, and tactically. And IMO, that starts with explanations to the public of what is at stake and sober discussions in the Congress. What I do not affirm is that this or a successor president should wage this war on his own authority only. 

Related: 

Why Iran is betting on war, from the Financial Times. 

"A Christmas Carol" movies you can watch right now, free

I have 18 movie versions of Charles Dickens' novel, A Christmas Carol, in my personal collection. And I watch all of them each Christmas season. Here is where you may find as many versions of the movie as I can find online for free viewing. They are listed in the order I found them, not according to my personal rating of their worth. 

First up, from 1984, starring George C. Scott as Scrooge, free on YouTube and hence embedded here:

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Nest is Scrooged, starring Alistair Sim. This movie has received high marks for Sims' performance as Ebenezer Scrooge.

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Next is is Patrick Stewart playing Scrooge from 1999. This one has become an almost instant classic. 

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This version stars Guy Pearce as a younger Scrooge than we usually imagine. And it is more based on the novel's theme than its narrative, although the character's names are the same. Hence it is a reboot of sorts, rather long (almost three hours) with many added scenes, and Marley's ghost has a much larger part. But I give it good marks for staying faithful to Dickens' themes. 

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Here is the first movie of the novel with sound, 1935's Scrooge, starring Seymour Hicks.

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1938's version, starring Reginald Owen:

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A Christmas Carol (1954), starring Frederic March and Basil Rathbone: 

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Here is An American Christmas Carol from 1979, starring Henry Winkler:

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From 2015, starring Anthony D.P. Mann, one of the shortest versions at 59 minutes:

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From the BBC in 2000, one of my favorite versions, set in modern London with Scrooge being a young hoodlum loan shark, starring Ross Kemp. 

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And last, a musical version starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness, Scrooge, from 1970.

Have fun, and remember the lesson the story tells so well!

Paganism is coming back strong

 These are four long-ish essays that deserve careful reading because, though not collaborative products, they all interrelate remarkably. I wish I had the time to excerpt them and comment. So for now, at least, the list:

Generation Z and the Future of Faith in America

From Commentary: The Return of Paganism - The spiritual crisis afflicting contemporary America has ancient and enduring roots—and so does the cure. Key point: As explained in the article, pagan practices ultimately always result in human sacrifice, especially of children.

The Queers Versus The Homosexuals - We are in a new era. And the erasure of gay men and lesbians is intensifying. (Yes, it is relevant to both links above)

Rape of the Locke - Western liberalism is being replaced. What comes next is illiberal to its core.

Going to a theme park? Be prepared for fist fights. . .

Multiple theme parks across the country are enforcing stricter rules about adults being required to accompany children in the parks. Knotts Berry Farm even closed down several hours early one day because of teens' behavior.

The largest group to implement chaperone policies is Cedar Fair, which owns and operates many parks, including California's Knott's Berry Farm. Knott's Berry Farm was forced to close early on July 16, 2022, due to "unruly behavior and altercations involving a number of teenagers," according to a statement from the park.

A few days later, on July 20, 2022, the park announced it would be implementing a chaperone policy on Fridays and Saturdays only. It also updated its code of conduct page to include details of the police.

A large number of other parks have implemented stricter rules as well. 

Why has this become an issue? Well, Consider: "U.S. has world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households," for one. 

For decades, the share of U.S. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births outside of marriage. A new Pew Research Center study of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.

And according to the Census Bureau, the number of children living with a single parent climbs sharply as children get older. 

Note that among children 12-17 years old, 36.6 percent live with only their mother and 40 percent live with only their father. That makes almost 81 percent of all minor teens living with only one parent.

And as we pastors all know, worship attendance or other participation by post-Boomer generations has fallen sharply - and the younger the generation, the more sharply.

American religious identity has experienced nearly three decades of consistent decline. But this roughly linear trend masks significant generational variation in religious identity. Research has consistently shown that every generation of adults is somewhat less religious than the generation that preceded it.[7] This pattern continues with Generation Z demonstrating less attachment to religion than the millennial generation did.[8]

In terms of identity, Generation Z is the least religious generation yet. More than one-third (34 percent) of Generation Z are religiously unaffiliated, a significantly larger proportion than among millennials (29 percent) and Generation X (25 percent). Fewer than one in five (18 percent) baby boomers and only 9 percent of the silent generation are religiously unaffiliated.

It’s not only a lack of religious affiliation that distinguishes Generation Z. They are also far more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic. Eighteen percent of Gen Z affirmatively identify as either atheist (9 percent) or agnostic (9 percent). In contrast, fewer than one in 10 (9 percent) baby boomers and 4 percent of the silent generation identifies as atheist or agnostic.

But there is a lot more to this drop than mere year of birth, there is politics, too:

A growing body of research finds that religious practice and identity have become entangled with politics.[11] What is notable is just how recent some of these shifts have been.

According to Gallup, in 2021, only 35 percent of liberals said they were a member of a church or other place of worship.[12] But liberals did not always have such low rates of membership. In fact, the left has experienced a precipitous drop in church membership over the past three decades. In 1998, a majority of liberals (57 percent) were members of a church or other type of religious organization.

Conservatives have also experienced a steady drop in church membership, but it has not been nearly as steep. More than six in 10 (62 percent) conservatives belonged to a church or congregation in 2021, a significant decline from 1998 when 77 percent reported being a member.

But it’s not only that liberals register lower levels of religious participation or membership. They are also less likely to have been raised in a religious tradition. Liberals are nearly twice as likely as conservatives are to say they grew up religiously unaffiliated (13 percent vs. 7 percent, respectively). They also report engaging in formal and informal religious activities at lower rates. Rather than religious disengagement reflecting decisions liberals make as adults, their trajectory of disassociation appears to have been set much earlier.

It is not a coincidence that more and more children are being born to never-married mothers: Statista's graph agrees with the CDC's report:

Percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States from 1980 to 2021

Increasingly, the traditional, two-parent, religious nuclear family is becoming an exception rather than the rule. Heck, according to these numbers is already is the exception and it is no accident that this is the deliberate intention of the American Left.  And so we are reminded once again:

But at least some people are taking what is now a counter-cultural position: "‘Get married and start a family’: Georgia Tech grad speaker."

Students should not be solely focused on making money and becoming a success in their field, according to a Super Bowl-winning kicker who spoke at Georgia Institute of Technology’s graduation ceremony.

Harrison Butker, the kicker of the Kansas City Chiefs and an alumnus of Georgia Tech, instead urged graduates to “get married and start a family.”

He said this is an antidote to ongoing mental health problems in society, including loneliness and depression. He also reminded attendees that not every good deed or success will be noticed but “what is done in the darkness will be brought to the light,’” Butker said, quoting the Bible.

The devout Catholic and pro-life advocate then showed off “the most important ring” he had to the crowd – his wedding ring. Butker also has two Super Bowl rings.

And Glenn Reynolds writes that we are seeing the return of "Those shocking bourgeois values."

To endorse green energy is to be pro-slavery

 Anyone who demands we transition to green energy is endorsing slavery. Period. 

China is the largest single provider of most of the critical minerals and rare earths used around the globe, and is almost the only refiner of such products. This means minerals and rare earth elements mined elsewhere, often with Chinese funding, are shipped to China for processing into usable materials. Much of the mining and refining of materials in China is produced by forced or slave labor, often of persecuted religious minorities, like Falun Gong followers and Uighurs.

To be clear, those pushing Net Zero goals, like Democrats in Congress, green energy elites profiting from government support in the form of mandates and subsidies, and the Biden administration, know child- and slave-labor are used to produce the minerals their green technologies depend upon. They claim to care about human rights, but their actions belie their words.

Child labour, toxic leaks: the price we could pay for a greener future:

But scientists warn there will be an environmental price to pay for this drive to create a world powered by green technology. Prospecting for the materials to construct these devices, then mining them, could have very serious ecological consequences and major impacts on biodiversity, they say.

“The move towards net zero carbon emissions is going to create new stresses on our planet, at least in the short term,” said Prof Richard Herrington, head of earth sciences at the Natural History Museum, London. “We are going to have to learn how to consider profit and loss with regard to ecosystems just as we do now when we are considering economic issues.”

Metals such as lithium and cobalt provide examples of the awkward issues that lie ahead, said Herrington. Both elements are needed to make lightweight rechargeable batteries for electric cars and for storing power from wind and solar plants. Their production is likely to increase significantly over the next decade – and that could cause serious ecological problems.

In the case of cobalt, 60% of the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where large numbers of unregulated mines use children as young as seven as miners. There they breathe in cobalt-laden dust that can cause fatal lung ailments while working tunnels that are liable to collapse.

All of this has been documented so much over the years by so many organizations that "I didn't know" is as morally empty as can be. If you endorse using green energy what you are really saying about slavery is that you do know, but you do not care. 

Christians and the State

Tuesday is, of course, election day. As citizens of the world’s largest representative democracy, each of us has the right to speak our minds about our nation’s national issues to those whom we have elected to make the decision. Moreover, in such serious matters as those before us now, I would say we are obligated to do so.

However, who to vote for is not my topic this morning. I am using the issue as a chance to explore what the Bible teaches Christians about living under secular law in relationship to government. For that is how you and I live each day in either times of turmoil or peace. 

In the apostles’ time about three hundred years afterward, how Christians should live under a government that was in no way Christian and was often actually lethal to Christians was a subject of great importance. It is still today a problem for many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. But perhaps the fundamental problem Paul and the other apostles faced is not so different from ours if we think of the world as a larger community: On one hand, how do we live peaceably and godly in a world in which violence is seen by some as an answer to any question, and on the other, how do we live the fullness of Christ’s commandments under laws at home that are arguably sometimes repressive of doing so? 

Here is what I mean. A few years ago in Raleigh, NC, a church ministry called Love Wins was threatened with arrest. Reverend Hugh Howell explained: 

On the morning of Saturday, August 24, Love Wins Ministries, where I am pastor and director, showed up at Moore Square in Raleigh, North Carolina at 9:00 a.m., just like we have done virtually every Saturday and Sunday for the last six years. We provide, without cost or obligation, hot coffee and a breakfast sandwich to anyone who wants one. We keep this promise to our community in cooperation with five different, large suburban churches that help us with manpower and funding.

On that morning three officers from Raleigh Police Department prevented us from doing our work, for the first time ever. An officer said, quite bluntly, that if we attempted to distribute food, we would be arrested. …

When I asked the officer why, he said that he was not going to debate me. "I am just telling you what is. Now you pass out that food, you will go to jail."

What will we do? Simple: we will feed people. I am, after all (however imperfectly), a follower of Jesus, who said himself that when we ignore hungry people, we ignore him.

That situation practically defines the tension Paul addressed in Romans 13:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 

We may as well admit that Paul’s verses are difficult to swallow without reservations. Within the last century, "a century of unspeakable horror," says New Testament scholar N. T. Wright, “these verses have been [effectively] struck out of the canon, vilified, and blamed for untold miseries.” History poses no challenge to finding governments or government policies that ranged from unjust to evil to downright demonic, whether at home or abroad. 

Paul was not naïve. He knew well the evil that governments do – a main example being crucifying Jesus and persecuting his followers. It seems likely to me that Paul, a well-trained Pharisee, was thinking an old Jewish precept that God requires order in the world, not chaos. Hence, the principle of human governance is a divine principle. He is endorsing the necessity of government in general, but not any government in particular. 

Justice was a high virtue of Jewish thought. The prophets emphasized that one of the cardinal responsibilities of rulers was to preserve justice, the right ordering of the relationship between the state apparatus and the people.

If the rulers were responsible for maintaining justice, then the people had to obey the rules for justice to be served. One of Paul’s themes in Romans 12 and 13, says Wright, is that “justice is served not by private vengeance but by individuals trusting the authorities to keep wickedness in check. Knowledge that the authorities are there to look after such matters is a strong incentive to forswear freelance attempts at ‘justice'.”

Paul knew, of course, that no human system of justice is perfect; the best we can do is roughly correspond our affairs to divine justice. Yet Paul advises the Christians in Rome not to take justice into their own hands. Their identity as the only Christians in town did not give them permission for anarchy. Instead, their responsibility is to work for the Kingdom of God in proclaiming the Gospel until, Paul implicitly hopes, all rulers ultimately pledge their first allegiance to God rather than the state. The Roman Christians must not therefore try to establish themselves as a “para-state” organization but remain under Roman authority even while they work to bring forth the Kingdom of God. 

The Christians in Rome were a small minority. Paul did not think that they should become agents of chaos, attempting to live as if they had no relation to the political world at large. Paul did not desire them to replace the Roman government with a religious cult. The ultimate overthrow of unjust power comes by other means – which is to say, regime change of the ungodly is done by converting them, a theme Paul expounded back in Romans Five.

If we accept that we Christians are under at least a divine principle of obedience to civil authority, what are our obligations to obey specific laws in 21st-century America?  

Let’s look at this issue in a way that almost all of us face every day: driving a car. The government sets speed limits. The majority of Tennessee’s Christians think that the speed limits on our interstates are too low. My proof is daily at 7 a.m. on I-65 to Nashville. It cannot be only the unconverted heathen going 85 or more. Does the fact that “everybody is doing it” make it okay? 

Paul had no experience with a democratic form of government. Americans do not claim that God established our government; our Constitution states that “We the people of the United States . . . ordain and establish” the government. Our nation’s founders believed that the first imperative of government in the first place is to safeguard personal liberty. Liberty requires some degree of order to flourish, yet not too much order, lest it be crushed.

Liberty is not found in chaotic societies. Some places on the globe today fit that description; political analysts call them “failed states,” and life there is truly awful. Neither is freedom found in hyper-ordered societies of control, such as North Korea. 

Liberty is found at neither extreme, but between them. Community and justice require some rules for the common good, but as few rules as necessary, not as many as possible. 

One may argue that our driving environment is too chaotic and is not ordered enough. In Germany, where very high speeds are legal, the drivers are extremely self-disciplined compared to us and much more law abiding in their driving. 

So we might ask whether breaking the speed limit is unacceptably chaotic. That question I leave to each person’s conscience. But the relationship of obeying the speed limit to order or chaos is not the only consideration. Christians are enjoined by Christ to love one another. In fact, just after our passage, Paul says, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. … those who love one another fulfill the law… . Love does no wrong to the neighbor; therefore, the fulfillment of the law is love.” 

Love by definition is directed toward the well-being of others. If breaking the law is justified, it can only be justified in Christian faith for the higher principle of love, and not from selfish interest. 

When my son Thomas was five years old, he suffered an accident in our back yard that gave him a deep cut barely above one eye. He was bleeding profusely. My wife wrapped a towel around the wound and we jumped into the car. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. could not have beat me to the emergency room. Love for my son certainly far outweighed Paul’s injunction to submit to the government during that drive. 

So there’s my answer: if civil disobedience is ever justified for Christian people, it is justified only for reasons of love and justice, not selfishness. “I like to drive fast” or “I’m late for a meeting” are selfish reasons, not loving ones, not just ones. In the meantime, let those who believe the speed limits are too low campaign within the political system to change them. That’s how America works. 

 In fact, Paul’s passage strongly implies that political activity by Christian persons is affirmed and validated. Paul never indicated that Christian faith and political activity by Christians were antithetical to one another. Christians can be involved in the political life of society by voting, campaigning, or holding office without ceasing to be Christians, and may see all such things as part of their Christian service.

Reverend Howell in Raleigh ended his article by listing the email addresses and phone numbers of the Mayor and of the City Council members, then continued,

We encourage you to continue to call and voice your concern. We spoke with the Mayor yesterday, and while she did say that no one will be arrested for feeding hungry people in the park, it's important to continue to make your voice heard. The status quo is not acceptable.

No matter how temporal authority rules, it is God who over-rules. All governments and their ministers, everyone who wields political power, whether Christian or not, are under God’s judgment whether they realize it or not. They are to rule justly and fairly so that freedom of the people may flourish, constraining the conduct of the people only enough to keep chaos at bay. The people are obliged to obey civil laws unless doing so plainly would violate our high duties of divine love in service to God’s kingdom. 

I’ll give Rev. Howell the last word: “Keep in mind that … Anger does not cast out fear -- only love can do that.”

Evil never draws boundaries - here is proof

From former senior NYT reporter Bari Weiss:

The House Pro-Choice Caucus has just released official new language guidance: “Choice” is categorized as “harmful language” when talking about abortion. Yes, as the battle of a lifetime heats up, the House of Representatives’ Pro-Choice Caucus announced that their own name is problematic. Instead of “choice,” the better word is “decision.” They’re getting this from a Planned Parenthood document that argues that the word “choice” implies freedom that many black women don’t have.

From that same document: Instead of saying “pro-choice,” the new preferred phrase is: “Pro-abortion.” Yes: pro-abortion. Is this a joke? It is not.

Dems also have formally dropped the quite effective phrase “safe, legal, and rare,” since rare implies there’s anything wrong with copious abortions. Again, that’s real. Where activists once made huge inroads talking about abortion as a private, difficult choice a woman sometimes needs to make, they now argue it’s not a choice, that it’s not about women, and anyway the act should be celebrated.

Two must reads

 

Click here.

“There has never been any unitary organisation of Western culture apart from that of the Christian Church,” explained the medieval historian Christopher Dawson in Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, written shortly after World War Two. “Behind the ever-changing pattern of Western culture there was a living faith which gave Europe a certain sense of spiritual community, in spite of all the conflicts and divisions and social schisms that marked its history.”

The West, in short, was Christendom. But Christendom died. If you live in the West now, you are living among its ruins. Many of them are still beautiful — intact cathedrals, Bach concertos — but they are ruins nonetheless. And when an old culture built around a sacred order dies, there will be lasting upheaval at every level of society, from the level of politics to the level of the soul. The shape of everything — family, work, moral attitudes, the very existence of morals at all, notions of good and evil, sexual mores, perspectives on everything from money to rest to work to nature to the body to kin to duty — all of it will be up for grabs. Welcome to 2021.

 

Click here.

Nothing but a new Great Awakening can save America. Sadly, we have had an awakening of sorts, but in the form of an immanentized apocalypse—climate change—and the substitution of Woke cultishness for the old awareness of sin and redemption. Mr. Johnston has done a great service with his comprehensive survey of our follies and their consequences. His indictment of America’s national decline and its causes in economics, culture, and politics is incisive and convincing, and his overreach in history and philosophy is a minor distraction in the construction of his case. His belief that America has the wherewithal to restore itself shines through, especially in his concluding chapters. During the 1930s we sank into Depression and isolationism, but emerged as the most powerful nation on earth and the leader of the Free World in the 1940s. We languished in what Jimmy Carter called a national malaise during the 1970s but came roaring back with the Reagan Revolution. We have yet to see which spirit will move us.

We become what we focus on

The severest punishment God ever lays upon us is to let us have what we want.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."
Proverbs 29.18, King James Version

Jason Gould is a Vanderbilt University student who, though liberal and progressive, fell afoul of the "woke" Gestapo (yes I use that word intentionally) that operates on almost every campus today. He was savaged by the campus newspaper and other attacks while the university administration found other things to occupy its attention, like watching the grass grow. One university staffer even took part. This despite the fact that he was running for student government office, for which Vanderbilt's rules specifically forbid personal attacks upon any candidate. Oh, he was (a) white and (b) Jewish, so he was automatically guilty of everything. He relates, 

The other candidates’ supporters tore down our posters and ripped my head off pictures. Fake social media posts circulated that my fraternity had parties with Confederate flags and chanted that the South would rise again. One message said, “White men are the absolute worst!” and “He should get dragged for it!” Then came the anti-Semitism: “Hitler got something right!”

 

This was a victimhood arms race. I was cast as a white, male evil-doer who must be shamed and punished for all the white man’s sins. I was unfit to hold office. My economic inclusion work didn’t mean a thing. I was paraded out for a social media stoning, and the social justice mob would stop at nothing.

 

Everything I had worked for was destroyed, and so was my reputation. I felt unsafe to walk on campus. The other candidates were elected unopposed. They made "misogynoir" their campaign slogan. I had no choice but to drop out of the election race for my physical safety and mental health and leave Nashville for someplace safe.

 

Vanderbilt’s campaign rules prohibit negative campaigning and ban any remark or attack about a candidate’s personal character. These rules require collegiality and civility, but Vanderbilt stood by while this angry mob weaponized social justice, targeted me, threatened me, and ran me out of town.

 

I’ve begun to believe that for some of my attackers, social justice is a cover for people who get pleasure from inflicting harm on others — straight-up bullying made a hundred times worse on social media. When did woke culture become so toxic? Some are cowards who hide behind an avatar. I am through being trampled on, but I shouldn’t have to fight back. When the social justice mob came for me, my university did nothing.

[Italics added] 

"When did woke culture become so toxic?" Well, it began toxic and went downhill from there. Gould is right, though - show me a "woke" warrior and I will show you someone who will someday be quite gleeful about flogging class enemies into the gulag. Consider this tweet:

We are a very short way from the Stalinist modus operandi: 

1. Show me the man or woman, and I will tell you their crimes. 
2. You may not be guilty of anything at all, but you are a member of a class - that is, a racial or religious group - that is guilty of everything. 

So what does all that have to do with Proverbs 29.18? Here it is again: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he" -- King James Version. 

The KJV text, though well known, poorly communicates what the verse is trying to say. The KJV was done in the very early 1600s and for today, it just is not a good translation.

"Vision" refers to spiritual sight, more properly, spiritual insight. The verse, properly understood in its context and intention, is actually one of the most important warnings and assurances in the entire Bible.

Try this: When the people lose sight of God’s will, they go astray, but they prosper when they keep God’s law.

"The people" in the verse does not refer just to a worshiping congregation, but in the context of its time, a national people, the people of ancient Israel. The verse is talking about national consequences of ignoring God and the benefits of cleaving to God's commandments.

Bible Gateway has a long list of different translations and renderings. The ERV's translation is probably the best: "If a nation is not guided by God, the people will lose self-control, but the nation that obeys God’s law will be happy."

One Hebrew word study I read said that the real thrust of the verse is that when the nation loses sight of godliness, it descends into anarchy. We become what we focus on. When we lose sight of God and God's will for our lives, we become ungodly. That never ends well, either for individuals, churches or nations.

Here is a key point: God commandments were revealed to humanity. We did not make them up. We are so far removed from their revelation that we think that morality, as we understand it, is the natural way that people live together. In fact, the societies around the ancient Jews and early Christians were brutal.

 

The Romans considered mercy, charity and forgiveness to be vices, not virtues. Roman parents beat their children for the showing weakness of mercy. Human morality absent divine commandment is base and as Proverbs says, descends finally into anarchy. We will either rule our passions or be ruled by them. As St Paul put it, "God cannot be disregarded." Note well: he did not write God "should not be" or "must not be," but cannot be disregarded. It is not possible. He continued, "You will harvest what you plant."

Morally, our capacities are weighted toward the negative side of the scale. People intend greater good than they achieve. Treaties, alliances, aid organizations, political parties, civic groups, even churches – all begun for good reasons to accomplish good things, and all fall short of what their founders intended.

Hence the necessity of God giving the moral law. My friend and former co-author Rabbi Daniel Jackson wrote, "There are obvious logical elements of the Law of Sinai that might be deduced logically (or rationally). Yet, much of the Scriptures is based on directives and rules that we would not have known if the Scriptures did not tell us so."

God's Law frees us from the baser demons of our being so that we may discover the better angels of our nature. Every choice to depart from God's Law chips away at our integrity as persons belonging to Jesus. Integrity matters!

During his time as a rancher, Theodore Roosevelt and one of his cowpunchers lassoed a maverick steer, lit a fire, and put a branding iron in it to heat. The part of the range they were on was actually owned by Gregor Lang, one of Roosevelt's neighbors. According to the cattleman's rule, the steer therefore belonged to Lang. Roosevelt saw his employee, the cowboy, raise the glowing branding iron toward the steer, but it was Roosevelt's brand. "Wait, it should be Lang's brand," he said.

"That's all right, boss," said the cowboy. "Lang will never know."

"Drop that iron," Roosevelt demanded, "go back to the ranch, get your things and get out." Roosevelt later explained, "A man who will steal for me will steal from me."

Integrity, says Webster's, is "adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty." And that takes the willingness and ability to cleave to a standard, whether you call it the law or a code or something else. Choices matter, and the choices we make are not isolated from one another.

The issue is more acute for young people than for me or those older than me. It sounds trite to say but it's nonetheless true that we grew up in a different time than you. The advice to "do your own thing" was unknown to us and we would never have even thought of agreeing that something may be right for you and wrong for me, or vice-versa, depending on our own inclinations, points of view and what we simply want to believe.

The problem is that to be a man or woman in 2021 is to believe in nothing. Or more accurately, to believe in nothing in particular. The spirit of this age gleefully embraces that nothing underlies fundamental reality, making, in the words of David Hart, "a fertile void in which all things are [claimed] possible, from which arises no impediment" to our desires and therefore we may decide for ourselves what is right or wrong and what we choose.

Which is to say that modern America as a whole no longer believes that there are objective criteria by which to judge our choices because being able to choose in the first place is the highest good there is. Therefore, all judgment, whether divine or human, infringes on choosing – and being able to choose according to one's own standards exercises "an almost mystical supremacy over all other concerns."

This is a purely modern idea. In centuries past, even before Jesus was born, true human freedom was understood as liberation "from whatever constrains us from living a life of rational virtue" and that led to our intellectual and spiritual flourishing. Freedom was the ability to overcome "our willful surrender to momentary impulses, [including] our own foolish or wicked choices."

"In this view of things [said Hart], we are free when we achieve that end toward which our inmost nature is oriented ... and whatever separates us from that end -- even if it comes from our own wills -- is a form of bondage. We are free not merely because we can choose, but only when we have chosen well."

For to choose poorly is to enslave ourselves to the impermanent, the irrational and eventually the destructive. Simply choosing, unconnected from divine guidance and godly standards, is to choose ultimately to reject freedom and to be enslaved to what Paul called the body of death and finally to choose to perish rather than attain everlasting life.

God's law enables human beings to be freed from the shackles of spiritual and mental bondage that prevent us from being saved in this life and the next. Paul's advice of Romans 12 holds true: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

Even Jesus understood that a life of choosing rightly is not easy. "Enter through the narrow gate," he said, "for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

What to do and how? Paul tells us that in Philippians 4:8: “… Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

It's not easy to live rightly to remain free. It is bondage to death and sin that is easy. But we can break those chains if we keep focused on God. Then we will be free indeed.

Election and Unity - a reflection on this Tuesday

 English statesman Edmund Burke observed that America is the only nation ever to be founded upon an idea. The American idea, and ideal, is that there really can be a country where all persons are “created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and that the purpose of government is to secure these rights, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.  

History reveals that across time and the globe, disputes over succession of power have usually been settled by mobs or armies in the streets, ending with one of the contenders dead or fled. Even in civilized England, three sitting kings were murdered by their successors and one was deposed by Parliament, which then beheaded him. But in America, where there are at least 250 million guns in private hands, there is no such history of violence over elections. Perhaps it is because we may change administrations but not governments. Elections here don’t bring violence, at worst they bring . . . lawyers. Through the lens of history, our domestic political predicament is unusually peaceful.

America’s founders realized that the people of a democracy would inevitably divide into factions, setting the people in opposition to one another. For that reason, the founders mistrusted direct democracy. “Democracies,” James Madison wrote in Federalist 10, “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” The founders feared the tyranny of a democratic majority almost as much the tyranny of a monarchy. The script of Mel Gibson’s blockbuster movie, The Patriot, reflected this fear when Mel Gibson’s character expressed doubts about the revolution by asking a colonial assembly, “Will you tell me why I should trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?”

Hence the founders rejected direct democracy. In fact, wrote historian Fred Barbash,

“Democracy, as we think of it, wasn’t a serious option. Democracy was an alien notion; the word itself was rarely used in the debates of that time. The real power, they believed, resided in the House of Representatives, elected by popular vote.”

(As an aside, the founders appear to have assumed that presidential elections would be decided by the House more often than not. “It will rarely happen that the majority of the whole votes will fall on any one candidate,” said George Mason of Virginia.)

There is the famous anecdote of Benjamin Franklin leaving the Constitutional Convention and being asked by a woman on the sidewalk what government she would have. “A republic,” he answered, “if you can keep it.” Of course, a republic will have factions, too, but is much less subject to their ill effects. It would be nice to say that the founders thought that high-falutin ideals like truth, justice and morality would protect national unity, but they weren’t so naive. They knew high ideals could be easily perverted for tyranny’s purposes. The unity of the nation may be rooted in the ideals of the government but can be preserved only in the form of the government. So the founders made the nation a republic, which is the main reason we have the electoral college rather than direct election.

A republic, as defined by the founders, is a government which derives all its powers from the people and is administered by persons holding their offices for a limited period. Essential to a republic is that elected officials come from all segments of society and not from a small proportion, or a favored class. Furthermore, every tenure of office must be conditional in some way, either by limiting terms by law or by enabling removal by law.

Factionalism cannot be eliminated from society. “The latent causes of faction are sown in the nature of man,” Madison wrote, because differing interests always have divided humankind “into parties . . . and rendered them much more disposed to . . . oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good,” an observation proven every four years. Madison observed that the tendency toward disunity was so deeply rooted in human nature that the most violent conflicts have been kindled for the most frivolous reasons.

Madison thought it folly “to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” Furthermore, politicians necessarily deal with matters immediately at hand and rarely take a long view of things.

Now, here is the reason I’ve gone through this civics lesson, for the Founders left a bombshell for church people. John Adams wrote, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled with morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In other words, the founders understood that the protections of constitutional liberty depended on the morality and religious conviction of the people. Yet while morality and religion were necessary for liberty, they cannot guarantee liberty, because, wrote Madison, “Neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on” to control factionalism and discord. After all, a sense of morality and religion do not even prevent “the violence of individuals.” In civil affairs, the moral and religious senses restrain factions less and less as factions get bigger. Thus, individually moral and religious men and women inflamed and united by acrimonious passion become a mob.

This is an important point. The present election has inflamed passions throughout the country, including to the violence that the Founders warned us. Neither candidate has made much in the campaigns of their religious convictions. It is just as well. America's Founders trusted neither religion nor its lack as a qualification of a candidate. While we may hope and pray that our national leaders will be guided by the highest ideals of moral and religious convictions, our nation’s founders warned us not to count on it, either for office seekers, office holders or voters. We must seek another source of unity for our nation, not to supplant morality and religion but to complement them.

Our continuing hope for national unity is that we re-unite around the flagpole of the ideals of the republican form of government the founders bequeathed us. We must re-educate ourselves in republican ideals (note the small "r") and how it inhibits the dangers of democracy. The Federalist Papers wax long and eloquent on the virtues of a republic, but I’ll not list them here.

A closing thought: James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers Number 39 of “that honourable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."

The prosperity of American civilization does not rest upon the power of government to rule us, not even in the slightest. The future of our nation is founded by our ability and willingness to govern ourselves, to suppress the devils of our passions to let flower the better angels of our nature.

If we cannot continue to do that then truly our votes will not matter. 

Deliberately inflating the Covid count - why?

Consider this FB post, which I have personally verified (I deleted the person's name).

Now, why is that the rule? Having been a federal bureaucrat, I will say (in my view, authoritatively) that the reason is simple: money.

Understand that this listing decision was not originated by physicians or nurses, but by administrators. And the overwhelming desire of every bureaucratic administrator everywhere is this: Increase his/her department's budget.  Because bureaucrats get promoted by showing they can manage ever-larger budgets, not for managing programs or people.

Medical bureaucrats know very well that C19-related, enormous streams of money are already flowing from federal spigots and will continue to do so for months or even years to come. And the amount any operation or agency will get will relate very directly to the number of C19 cases they report, especially the fatalities.

If you think this sounds cynical, I assure you: It is far from cynical enough.

And the beat goes on:

The Big Apple’s new death toll is 10,367. That figures combines the 6,589 victims who tested positive for the virus plus another 3,778  who were never tested, but whose death certificates list the cause of death as “COVID-19 or an equivalent,” according to city Health Department data from March 11 through April 13.

Italics mine, to illuminate what is being done here. What exactly is an "equivalent" cause of death to C19? Why, something that killed them, duh. You know, like lung cancer.

I said on my FB page, "First, let’s kill the children."

 Serious question: How many people are we willing to kill to stop people from dying of Covid-19?  

More specifically: How many children are we willing to kill to do it? Read this and weep:

"Hundreds of thousands of children could die this year due to the global economic downturn sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and tens of millions more could fall into extreme poverty as a result of the crisis, the United Nations warned on Thursday. ...

But the U.N. report warned that “economic hardship experienced by families as a result of the global economic downturn could result in an hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality within a single year.”

The full report is here, including the shocking nugget that 368 million children across 143 countries rely on school lunches as a source of nutrition, and,

"Hastily implemented lockdown measures risk disrupting food supply chains and local food markets,” which “pose potentially grave consequences for food security.”

Do you remember when, "Let's do it for the children!" was a rallying cry? Yeah, me, neither.

However, the sanguinary calculus is real: If we do not do lockdown/distancing by shutting down the economy, people will die. And if we do lockdown/distancing by shutting down the economy, people will still die - and the UN says that "hundreds of thousands" of them will be children. But as Roger Kimball explains,

We have often been presented with a false dichotomy between saving the economy and saving lives. This is a false dichotomy because, as Geach points out, “the state of our economy is not just a monetary risk, it is a health risk.” For one thing, “when people lose their jobs, they typically lose their health insurance.” He notes that there were more than 10,000 “economic suicides” as a result of the 2008 recession. There is also a spike in cancer deaths, drug abuse, domestic violence, and other pathologies.

This is not a guess, it is fact:

Every 1% hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3% increase in drug overdose deaths and a 0.99% increase in suicides according to data provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research and the medical journal Lancet. These are facts based on experience, not models. If unemployment hits 32%, some 77,000 Americans are likely to die from suicide and drug overdoses as a result of layoffs. Scientists call these fatalities deaths of despair.

There are protests around the country against long-continuing the restrictions from now. I frankly would be far more impressed with the protesters if they would leave their guns and flags at home and at least substantively acknowledge that the C19 threat is real.

But lockdown absolutists need to under stand this: More than 22 million Americans have become unemployed in the last month. The longer we are told to stay "safe at home" instead of going back to work, the less safe homes will become because of the despair and depressions that unavoidably will manifest. More people will kill themselves or a family member, more spouses and children will suffer abuse and injury, more alcoholics will be made, more people will suffer fatal non-Covid illnesses, more drug addicts will be made - that list goes on and on.

To be clear: 

I am not saying that the lockdown and distancing measures should not have been imposed. I am saying as clearly as I can that the time will come when continuing them will become more costly and lethal than lifting them. 

It is long past the time when we must stop having a false debate about the lockdown.

"At some point," [Princeton bioethicist] Peter Singer says, "we are willing to trade off loss of life against loss of quality of life. No government puts every dollar it spends into saving lives. And we can't really keep everything locked down until there won't be any more deaths.

We need to think about this in the context of the well-being of the community as a whole….We are currently impoverishing the economy, which means we are reducing our capacity in the long term to provide exactly those things that people are talking about that we need—better health care services, better social-security arrangements to make sure that people aren't in poverty. There are victims in the future, after the pandemic, who will bear these costs. The economic costs we incur now will spill over, in terms of loss of lives, loss of quality of life, and loss of well-being.

I think that we're losing sight of the extent to which that's already happening. And we need to really consider that tradeoff.

 The "false debate," in other words, is not the discussion that considers the enormous human cost of suppressing economic activity. It's the discussion that pretends there is no such tradeoff. 

If lockdowns are not substantially lifted much past the middle of May, I predict very large numbers of the American people will start concluding that the real point of these restrictions is not the health of Americans at all, but something politically sinister. And no podium appearances by Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx is going to persuade them otherwise.

Slavery and abortion - what's the diff?

What's the difference in the arguments offered today supporting abortion and the arguments used to support slavery until 1861?

None really: "Arguments for Abortion Mimic the Arguments for Slavery Before the Civil War."

Both the arguments for slavery in the 1800s and the arguments for abortion rely on a central claim: that a human being is less than human. The dehumanization of black people relied on pseudoscientific claims that they were inferior. The dehumanization of unborn babies relies on claims that they are "just a clump of cells" or part of a woman's body. In both cases, a growing movement of moral clarity demands that the dehumanized be granted a fundamental right long denied them: freedom and life. (Note: I am not saying abortion and slavery are the same, only that the arguments for them are similar.)

Read the whole thing.

In his debates with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln said, "If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong." Slavery was the brutal exploitation of one class of human beings by another. Abortion is the actual destruction of one class of human beings by another. But that's different, we are told, because abortion is medical care.

God save us.

Update My colleague, Rev. Allan Bevere, links to a column by Frederica Mathewes-Green, whom he accurately says,

... is one of the best moral theologians alive today. She is substantive and nuanced in her arguments and is not carried away by the temptation to offer theology and ethics in quaint clichés and social media memes, which is sadly so prevalent today.

This is a must-read.

Here: "When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense"