Curmudgeon Conservative

What's a Feminist to Do?

2011-05-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

According to a recent AP story, parents in India are aborting fetus' upon the discovery that the fetus is female.The article states, "In India, there is a huge cultural preference for boys in large part because of the enormous expense in marrying off girls and paying elaborate dowries. Officials have acknowledged that current laws have proved inadequate at combatting [sic] the widening sex ratio gap."

This article got me wondering about the proper feminist response to the situation in India. On the one hand, nothing is more precious to feminist philosophy than reproductive freedom (Abortion is a sacrament to feminism, as Rush says). On the other hand, the Indian situation presents a unique problem for feminism, namely the intentional selecting of female fetus' for abortion. Thus, creating a society where male is good and female is bad.

Selective abortion, based on gender or race, is nothing new. The founding of Planned Parenthood was based on the eradication of minorities from the United States, a purpose for which Planned Parenthood still exists. Nevertheless, the question must be asked, is feminism prepared to defend reproductive freedom at the expense of the status of women in Indian culture?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_INDIA_SEX_SELECTIVE_ABORTIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-05-24-06-48-11

P.S. It may be too little to late, but the Rob Bell post is coming.

Eulogy for Prof. Brad Huffaker 5/16/2011

2011-05-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

I am a secular humanist. I am a liberal Democrat. I am a moral deviant. I distribute condoms to any of my students who ask for them...Well, not me personally, but these are some of the highlights from my first day in class with Mr. Huffaker.

I was only 19, and having been homeschooled and raised in a conservative Christian home, I was scandalized by what I heard come from his mouth. I mean, I knew there were Democrats in the world, but I couldn't believe anyone would openly admit to being one. I knew there were people who were not Christian and didn't believe in God, but I made sure to stay a safe distance away from them. Despite my best efforts to avoid those different than me, here I was stuck in a small classroom with an instructor whose worldview was alien to mine. He wore a polo shirt that barely covered his stomach, sweat pants, and sandals with socks. I was determined to dislike him and his class. Fortunately for me what I found was an unexpected intellectual challenge and, most unexpectedly of all, a very close friend.

We live in a world where we are given two options, as it relates to having a worldview. The first option is to be friends with everyone and to have no firmly held beliefs at all, and to never let on if you do so as to never offend anyone. The second is to have such deeply held convictions that we cut ourselves off from anyone who thinks or lives differently. The most valuable instruction I received from Mr. Huffaker is that both of these options are wrong.

What I learned from him was the importance of having deeply held beliefs and the importance of debating them both intelligently and passionately, while at the same time considering an alternative point of view. I learned that people with extreme differences can, not only tolerate each, but love each other. I learned that people with differences don't have to hide their opinions but should engage in open and civil debate. From my first semester with him to now, I have carried these principles with me. And I must say that, after having lived in Seattle where everyone and everything is different than what I'm used to, having Mr. Huffaker as an instructor and friend really paid off.

It has been my personal experience that those who speak about tolerance, acceptance, and diversity are in fact enemies of such ideas. This is certainly not the case with Mr. Huffaker. While he was not himself a religious man, he never discouraged my Christian faith. On the contrary, he encouraged my study of scripture, theology, and philosophy. He even came to hear me preach on a Sunday morning. Mr. Huffaker always disagreed with my conservative political philosophy, but again his motivation didn't seem to be to change me but to challenge me, and he did. The last time I saw Mr. Huffaker, he mentioned his desire to get his will in order. He said that he might leave me some money. I told him he wouldn't want to do that. He asked me why, and I replied that I would give the money to the GOP.

It is true enough that Mr. Huffaker and I agreed on very little, but on this we do: that the freedom of our own minds to think about serious matters must be protected and encouraged, and all people should be allowed to speak and be listened to. Has this conservative, Republican, Christian, Lutheran benefited from having a close relationship with a secular, humanist, liberal, deviant? Yes.

Over the last few months Mr. Huffaker had gone through a series of serious surgeries in Tulsa, and I was driving him back and forth. When Mr. Huffaker and I arrived at the Tulsa hospital for the second time he told me, "Don't tell anyone I'm telling you this, but if you want to put in a good word for me with 'the man upstairs' that would be fine with me." I told him I had been praying for him since the moment I met him, and he said he appreciated that. So I don't think he would mind if I prayed,

Almighty God, creator of all that has been, all that is, and all that will be, remember your child Brad Huffaker. Deliver him not into the enemies hands, but for the sake of the holy, innocent and bitter sufferings and death of your beloved son Jesus Christ welcome him into the life eternal. In the name of the Holy Trinity the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A Young Man's Brain and An Old Man's Heart

2011-03-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

It was a cold, rainy, tornado warning night in Imperial, Nebraska. I remember Courtney, soaking wet, cold, and ready to leave, but I had just enough beer in me not to care about the bad weather or my wife's requests. I had come to see Alice Cooper, and I would not be denied. With lightning flashing all around the stage, Vincent Furnier's silhouette appeared behind the curtain, and the spectacle began.

The word "spectacle" is the best way of describing Alice Cooper, and the concert I saw in Nebraska was the perfect fusion of music, comedy, and pornography. Groucho Marx said that Alice Cooper was the last chance to save vaudeville, and he was right. Nobody did/does entertainment like Cooper. What better evidence can there be than those entertainers who've tried to copycat what Cooper does? From KISS, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Zombie, to ICP and Lady Gaga, Cooper is forever being imitated.

Nevertheless, Cooper was denied access into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame. Considered too edgy for the Hall, it took Cooper 16 years to even get on the ballot. However, on March 14, Cooper was finally welcomed to the Hall.

While I do not begrudge Cooper entrance into the Hall, I cannot help but feel that Cooper doesn't belong there. Isn't part of Cooper's edge found in not being accepted by the establishment?

Regardless, Cooper now dwells among other rock legends. All of whom deserve to be there, but none of whom combined music and spectacle like Alice Cooper.

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In Memoriam:

Clergyman, theologian, and professor at Harvard Divinity School, Peter Gomes passed away recently. Rev. Gomes, himself a homosexual, was famous for challenging Christian orthodoxy. An obituary written for him in USA Today was titled, "Rev. Peter Gomes view of God was one the whole world could live with," which is a fashionable way of saying that he believed in nothing. And isn't this the heart of liberalism, belief in nothing?

Does Yahweh Pee Standing Up? or The Gender of God and Why it Matters

2011-03-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at PC’s Pub enjoying a refreshing Pabst Blue Ribbon with two friends, one male and one female. We were making small talk about college, the music on the jukebox, and considering a game of pool, when all at once the inevitable happened. A serious conversation broke out.

My female friend, a self-described feminist, confided to the two men at the table that she was having trouble relating to God. What was getting in her way was God’s masculinity. As a female, she found the maleness of God preventing her from fully connecting with him, and as a feminist she felt somewhat insulted to have God only be spoken of as "he", "him", "father", etc. The male opposite of me at the table, a self described post-modernist, sympathized with her sentiments and assured her that the references to God as male in scripture were merely symbolic language given to an ancient, patriarchal culture. It was important for ancient people to understand God as male because they would not have understood him any other way. Since we now live in a more egalitarian culture references to God as male are not important, and our feminist friends can begin calling God "mother" and giving God female characteristics that she felt God should have.

To sum it all up the gender of God was important for my female friend because she didn’t like him being male. To my post-modern friend God’s gender wasn’t important, and we can refer to God however we want. They then looked to me for my thoughts, and it went something like this.

The reason why God being identified as male is important for all people to accept is because this is how God has chosen to reveal Godself. Holy Scripture (God’s revelation to humanity) makes it clear who God is. The nature of God as loving, merciful, gracious, etc. is only known to us by what God has left for us in the Old and New Testaments. In the same way we know God’s gender. It is because of God’s decision to reveal himself this way that God’s gender is important and should not be changed.

It was at this point of the conversation that both my friends accused me of sexism and being obsesses with God’s gender. I reminded them that it was the feminist (who are the only people obsessed with gender because they’ve never been comfortable with being female) that began this dialogue not me; nevertheless, I had become the villain for insisting on being faithful to scripture rather than culture or personal whims.

It is not only in the biblical text itself that God reveals himself in the masculine form but also in Jesus Christ. The second person of the Trinity. When the word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1), the word came as a man. It has been, and will continue to be argued, that Jesus came as male because he was in a patriarchal society and he didn’t want to rock the boat too much. But isn’t it true the Jesus was constantly challenging the cultural norms of his time? If God incarnate had come as female would it be justified, for me as a male, to demand God change so I could relate to her?

Picture, if you will , a situation where God had chosen to reveal Godself as female. Would it be correct for men to complain about this and to demand gender inclusive language when talking about God? Can you imagine an entire group of scholars and clergy advocating for a masculine theology? And would these same feminist, who insist on God changing how he has chosen to be identified, support such efforts? Of course not, and it would be nonsense for them to do so. What if I told my wife that I had trouble relating to her because she’s a woman, and from now on I needed to speak to her and treat her as a man? I wonder if my feminist friend would mind me telling her that her gender made it hard to relate to her and that she should change just to make me happy. You can see the extremes to which we must go in order to make everyone happy and comfortable with gender, including the gender of God.

This conversation ultimately comes down, not to gender, but to the interpretation of scripture. Those of us who adhere to an orthodox/traditional understanding of God’s masculine identity are not particularly concerned with it. We (both male and female) simply take God as God is, understood by his revelation in Holy Scripture regardless of culture. On the other hand, it is the feminist, the liberal, and the post-modern who seem obsessed with the gender of God. If they were not then why would they even mention such a thing, or how could it be a barrier between them and God? The obsession with God’s anatomy is all theirs. Furthermore, their method of biblical "interpretation" is driven by what culture says about scripture. For me, however, culture does not interpret scripture, scripture interprets culture and condemns it (Mark Mattes). Therefore, any attempt to alter who God is must be thoroughly rejected. For Christians, the Triune God is masculine, not because we want that to be the case, but because that’s who God is.

The Right Wing Rescuing Us From the Bible

2009-10-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

If you're like most Christians, you like to read the Bible, but you've probably been deeply damaged by the message of redemption, driven by a left wing bias. Luckily, we no longer have to read a Bible full of love and forgiveness thanks to our friends at the "Conservative Bible Project!"

Lead by Adam Schlafly (son of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly) the CBP promises to free the mind of pesky Bible stories like the woman caught in adultery. Who needs Jesus forgiving a whore? Adultery is destructive to society and must be punished by death. And that's not all, how about a Bible promoting free market values, instead of all that take care of the poor crap? The main arguement by the CBP is that readers cannot trust the history of Bible formation. A reader of the Bible cannot know that Jesus was a republican because the Bible has historically been formed by a liberal conspiracy.

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Are they serious? A couple points, first, the people behind the CBP are not truly conservative. A conservative seeks to conserve historic Christianity, especially the canon of scripture. Conservative/orthodox belief fights against liberal tendancies to continually reshape scripture based on what they want at any given time. To see folks, who have been recognized as conservative leaders, advocate a manipulation of the Bible is heretical and blasphemous. They must be publicly rebuked and defeated. Contemporary Christianity has a enough of a problem fighting against the religious right and left. It does not need the problems a "Conservative Bible" would cause.

I have had enough of the religious right and left, robertson and wallis. These folks have no desire to understand what Christianity has historically confessed. They are only interested in their current, selfish political desires.

p.s. For more on the CBP go to http://conservapedia.com/Main_Page Upcoming post: Rome and the Church of England

50 Days to Save the World

2009-10-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

From the people who brought you oil for food, anti-Semitism, and Rwandan genocide comes the "United Nations Climate Change Conference" in Copenhagen! That's right, this December communists, socialists, fascists, dictators, and tyrants will meet in Denmark to save the world. Never mind the damage to humanity's future these governments have participated in over the last century. All will be forgiven if they us from ourselves.

With hysteria, superstition, and paranoia only matched by the occult, the UN will get down to the serious business of telling people what kind of automobile to drive, what kind of light bulbs to use, and what temp we can set our thermostats. It will be very important for them to do this, so they can continue to live in mansions and fly on private jets. In light of the discovery that bovine flatulence is a significant contributor to global warming (or climate change or whatever they call it now), it would be better not to have the conference at all, since this is all that will be coming out of their mouths.

There are rumors that in the climate constitution, to be proposed, a world government will be suggested. Also, to repay climate sins of the past western nations will agree to pay billions of dollars to third world countries.

I pray that this does not come to pass, but I have no faith in the left-wing governments of Europe, and I certainly have no faith in the Nobel Peace Prize winner who may not be able to win a spelling bee against W. The religious hysteria of climate change fanatics is nothing more than an attempt to trample the liberty of free, thinking people. The UN has never been about global peace. On the contrary, they are about global control. Be paying attention to what goes on December 7-18.

p.s. upcoming post: "conservative" bible translation?

2009-10-17T02:50:00.001-07:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322004574477021697942920.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel

American Liberalism and the Toleration of Intolerance

2009-10-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

I do not care what your opinion is of Rush Limbaugh. I do not care what your opinion is about the National Football League or the St. Louis Rams. I do not care what your opinion is about "Rev" Al Sharpton or "Rev" Jesse Jackson. For the sake of this article, try as hard as you can to imagine that you are ignorant of all these characters. Imagine that you have only now heard their names.

Millionaire Rush Limbaugh wants to help purchase the St. Louis Rams, presumably because he's a football fan and that's just what millionaire's do. The National Football League informs the group Rush is a part of that this will not be a problem. The "Revs," being enemies of Limbaugh and out of work, protest but nobody gives a damn. Limbaugh gradually becomes closer to owning the Rams. The "Revs" turn to the only people who will take them seriously, the media. Collaborating with the "Revs," the media fabricates quotes, which make Limbaugh appear to be a racist. The NFL, thinking only of their pocketbook start to criticize Limbaugh for these quotes, which he never said. The media continues to report the Limbaugh quotes, without providing any evidence that these were his words. The "Revs" continue to whore themselves to the media, stirring up artificial emotions from black football players. Thinking only of their pocketbooks, Limbaugh's group removes him from their purchasing roster.

I dare anyone to show that this treatment of Limbaugh was justified. Slandering someones character, by means of fabricated evidence, is a violent act of aggression from one party towards another. For make believe clergymen and the American media to do this to a private citizen is a violation of ethics and morality.

If Sharpton and Jackson are going to continue identifying themselves as holders to the keys of the kingdom of heaven, we should be able to expect that they will not participate in the active violation of the eighth commandment (Lutheran version). We should be able to expect that they will serve a congregation and dispense God's grace to all people, not force themselves vainly into the spotlight to condemn someone they do not know by means of slander and deception. We should be able to expect that they will not be guilty of that which they preach against. But since they are no more servants of God than they are servants of themselves, it has become commonplace to see them leave their luxorious homes for the streets of Harlem in order to pad their wallets by tearing someone else down.

There is a belief that journalism in American media is dead, and with regard to this story I would have to agree. It is a terrifying reality that the media, which is supposed to help the common person understand the truth of current events, is now on record as having intentionally taking a quote that someone said Limbaugh said and not investigating the claim. Limbaugh now has his name tied to a quote supporting slavery, which he adamantly denies and there is (by the admission of CNN) no evidence whatsoever that the quote is from Limbaugh. Nevertheless, in their zeal to destroy Limbaugh they reported the quote as his.

For as long as I can remember, the American people have been lectured to by liberals about how they are the advocates for tolerance, and conservatives are those who advocate intolerance. But actions speak louder than words, and there is no doubt in my mind that the opposite is true. Those who seek to define all humanity by what group they belong to are liberals. It is liberal, collectivist thinking that continues the impoverishment of America's inner cities. It is liberalism that seeks to keep out of the American mainstream any dissenting view. In many colleges and universities, liberal faculty seek to eliminate any alternate form of expression that does not goose-step to left wing orthodoxy (if there can even be such a thing). The only thing liberals tolerate is intolerance.

Never trust a man with a woman's name

2009-10-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has struck again. Intent on driving the repub's further into irrelevance, he has aimed his missiles at the GOP's greatest threat, Ron Paul supporters. Dubbing them "angry white men," he stole a page from the liberal playbook, no surprise, attacking his critics by going after their race and gender.

It is easy to understand why Graham feels threatened by the old fashioned ideas of Paul's supporters, like free market capitalism and sound currency. Graham's big government, republican allies, like John McCain and W, should get behind him. If small government republicans get their way something terrible will happen. The size, scope, and inefficiency of the federal government will begin to disappear, and if government intervention into the daily activiy of the American public becomes a thing of the past we won't need folks like Graham any more.

A neo-conservative, Graham believes in the importance of a big, intrusive federal government. As long as he can convince us that the GOP and the American people will benefit from having career politicians in office, he will continue to weild his power over us all. Graham offers no leadership or solution for what ails us. The only thing he's interested in conserving (the definition of a conservative) is his own power and the power of the federal government. Republicans used to stand in opposition to this, but now they, as the democrats, are moving us toward a bigger more intrusive government. If "white males" are angry, they have good reason to be.

2009-10-14T23:21:00.001-07:00

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