Confirm Thy Soul in Self-Control
By Paul G. Kengor On June 27, 2011 - VisionAndValues.org
I encourage you to set aside the burgers and dogs and soda and beer for a moment this Fourth of July and contemplate something decidedly different, maybe even as you gaze upward at the flash of fireworks. Here it is: Confirm thy soul in self-control.
What do I mean by that? Let me explain.
The founders of this remarkable republic often thought and wrote about the practice of virtue generally and self-control specifically, two things long lost in this modern American culture of self. Thomas Jefferson couldn’t avoid a reference to one of the cardinal virtues—prudence—in our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, which, incidentally, ought to be a must-read for every American every Fourth of July (it’s only 1,800 words). Our first president and ultimate Founding Father, George Washington, knew the necessity of governing one’s self before a nation’s people were capable of self-governance. As Washington stated in his classic Farewell Address, “’Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”
A forgotten philosopher who had an important influence on the American Founders was the Frenchman, Charles Montesquieu, whose work included the seminal book, The Spirit of the Laws (1748). Montesquieu considered various forms of government. In a tyrannical system, people are prompted not by freedom of choice or any expression of public virtue but, instead, by the sheer coercive power of the state, whether by decree of an individual despot or an unaccountable rogue regime. That’s no way for human beings to live. There’s life under such a system, yes, but not much liberty or pursuit of happiness; even life itself is threatened.
Montesquieu concluded that the best form of government is a self-governing one, and yet it is also the most difficult to maintain because it demands a virtuous populace. As noted by John Howard—the outstanding senior fellow at the Howard Center for Family, Religion, & Society—Montesquieu noted that each citizen in a self-governing state must voluntarily abide by certain essential standards of conduct: lawfulness, truthfulness, honesty, fairness, respect for the rights and well-being of others, obligation to one’s spouse and children, to name a few.
“Each new generation must be trained to be responsible citizens … to be virtuous and conscientious,” writes Howard in The St. Croix Review. “Once the free society is well-established, the daily life of the family and the society is such that becoming virtuous is not a monstrous chore for the young people.”
Sadly, becoming virtuous has indeed become a monstrous chore in a society not only lacking virtue but eschewing virtue—fleeing virtue like a vampire fleeing a cross. Living life in a good way—what Benedict Groeschel calls The Virtue Driven Life—becomes so alien that the people prefer darkness over light. When virtues are not taught—whether at home, at school, or by America’s educator-in-chief, the TV set—they become unknown and ignored and unfulfilled, desiccated and dead upon the national landscape.
And perhaps saddest of all, as John Howard notes, virtue is something that can be acquired, like learning to speak a culture’s language. Once inculcated, however, it needs to be continuously reinforced by the cultural elements of the society. Virtue needs nourished, like fruitful plants need water and sunlight. Says Howard emphatically: “I want to repeat…. Virtue must be continuously reinforced by the culture.”
We Americans might not think about this much, but we actually sing it fairly often, even if the words don’t sink in. Consider this line from one of our sacred political hymns, America, the Beautiful:
America, America,
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
That’s the ticket: Confirm thy soul in self-control. Our liberty is enshrined in our laws, but liberty should not be license for opportunities for the flesh. Our liberties, protected and permitted as they are, should not be exploited to do anything and everything we want, including things harmful to oneself, to one’s family, to one’s neighbors, to one’s culture, to one’s country. That misunderstanding and abuse of freedom is what Pope Benedict XVI calls a “confused ideology of freedom,” one that can engender “the self-destruction of freedom” for others.
In truth, a genuine freedom requires responsibility. As the song says—and as Washington and Montesquieu intimated—we must successfully govern ourselves in order to successfully govern our nation.
It’s a timeless concept worth remembering this Fourth of July and every day going forward.
For confessional Lutherans this is an appeal to the Third Use of the Law.
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Comment by James Robertson on July 4, 2011 at 2:01pm -
Reflecting On Independence
We have freedom living every day, a liberty no man can take away,
Not the rights, a nation may give, in the land that one may now live,
It is a freedom they cannot herald, a freedom apart from this world,
The freedom Christians speak of, that comes from our Lord above.
Dispensed by The Lord and Creator, to all who come to The Savior,
A freedom in our Lord Jesus Christ, granted to us for all of this life,
Once we accept Christ in our heart, God’s Liberty shall never depart,
When in Christ, you become free; God’s Liberty carries into Eternity.
A nation’s laws we have now learned, by leaders can be overturned,
When by evil, they are driven; to repeal rights men were once given.
Under assault is our Godly Faith, we receive, strictly through Grace,
We see many rights slipping away, as moral laws continue to decay.
Rights established by any nation, lack a firm and Godly Foundation,
The laws built upon shifting sand, in coming days just will not stand,
As the nation faces amoral blight, as immorality then becomes right,
With righteousness all in the past, personal freedom just will not last.
Reflecting on Independence friend, will our Personal Freedoms end?
Here, where our fathers achieved, the liberty, we as citizens received,
It is times like this we are assured, of the Freedom in Christ our Lord,
That no nation can take from us, once in Christ we have put our trust.
Bob Gotti
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Comment by James Robertson on July 5, 2011 at 7:38am
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Being all fashioned of the self-same dust. Let us be merciful as well as just.- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Micah 6:8)
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Comment by James Robertson on July 6, 2011 at 8:15am
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- Nine Perversions of Multiculturalism
Michael Novak - InsideCatholic
The fraudulence of much that currently masquerades under the name "multiculturalism" results from gross perversions of what, in 1972, I called the new ethnicity. Multiculturalism is a profound betrayal of the fundamental principles of the new ethnicity. In the current culture wars on campus, however, an explicit indictment of the perversions of multiculturalism may be useful.
1. Anti-Americanism. Since it regards the West (at least its white males) as imperialistic, and America as the most advanced face of the West, multiculturalism expresses hostility to American traditions and institutions, while glorifying non-Western cultures, especially those inimical to America.
2. Victimology. Multiculturalism tends to divide the world into a privileged set of victims and their alleged oppressors, through the lens of a loose and vulgar Marxism. This Marxism is cultural rather than economic.
3. Ego-boosting. The aim of multiculturalism is to boost "self-esteem" at the expense, if necessary, of facts.
4. Evasion. The assumption of multiculturalism is that its selected favorites cannot meet universal standards because of the evil actions of others; therefore, multiculturalism regards honest inquiry as pointless. It further pretends that its privileged groups are innocent. Having no awareness of "original sin," it is merciless toward others.
5. Tactical Relativism. Multiculturalism pretends to be "nonjudgmental," hiding behind the myth of moral equivalence, while it is in fact based upon harsh judgments about good and evil (and the oppressed and their oppressors).
6. Censorship. Since it regards inquiry as useless, criticism as malevolent, intellect as impotent, and reason as nothing more than a servant of power, multiculturalism protects its wishes through speech codes, the banning of books, and the shouting down of opposing voices.
7. Groupthink. Blind to the complex relations of individuals to the communities that nurture them, multiculturalism approaches people only as members of groups and, afraid of the creativity of dissenting individuals, imposes thought control by humiliating dissidents in public, and encourages its partisans to look to each other before speaking out.
8. Egalityranny. In the name of "equality" wrongly understood, multiculturalism focuses on groups, group outcomes, and group statistical profiles -- in ways destructive of individual aspiration and achievement. Equality falsely construed (as uniformity) can scarcely be imposed upon the blooming, buzzing abundance of individual vitality -- except through despotic methods.
9. Double standards. Multiculturalism is constituted by double standards. Multiculturalism basks in the supposition that there are no universal standards by which individuals and cultures may be judged.
By contrast, the new ethnicity also recognizes that every human being is "rooted," and that each one's social history is important -- but never forgets that the unlimited drive to ask questions (implanted in each of us) impels us toward the higher standards and aspirations possible to the human species as a whole, rather than to those of our particular group or culture. For the new ethnicity, it is human to be rooted. It is our vocation to fulfill universal standards -- to give play to our capacity for universal sympathies, to our unlimited drive to ask questions, and to our unrestricted desire to know. Multiculturalism is moved by the eros of Narcissus; the new ethnicity is driven by the eros of unrestricted understanding.
To be sure, the diversity of human cultures is so great, and the nuances of difference are so many, that it is probably not possible to state a common faith (or moral code) in one set of abstract universal principles. On the other hand, so many basic elements of life are common to the human condition that there are likely to be "family resemblances" in the ways in which peoples deal with such realities as these: birth, growing up, falling in love, sickness, pain, striving and failure, marriage and having children, eating and drinking, betrayal, friendship, separation, death. All communication across cultures depends on such resemblances -- on the analogical method -- rooted in the fundamentals of human life. The search for analogies ("family resemblances") is more fruitful than the search for universal abstract statements of principle. Of many cultures, we are one species. We thirst to recognize our common humanity. The act of recognizing analogies awakens a natural desire for transcultural standards, such as might express our ultimate unity.
For such reasons, the study of other cultures is endlessly fascinating. It is so even as a way of gaining self-knowledge, since in others one may also discover unknown parts of oneself. Similarly, it takes more than a lifetime to appropriate -- [Latin, ad + proprius, to make one's own] -- that is, to internalize, the riches of one's own heritage.
The past records both sins against wisdom, and wisdom painfully acquired. Let those whose ancestors are without sin throw the first stones. Let those without sin throw the first stone at their ancestors. My father once told me that people who boast about their ancestors are like potatoes -- "the only good part of them is underground." Yet he urged us all to study history avidly. He warned us not to be surprised to find that our ancestors were in some things smarter than we. (That is probably a good definition of a conservative -- one who believes that his grandparents were at least as good as he.)
When and if multiculturalism embraces truth -- shows genuine respect for all (including dead white males) -- and ceases to be intolerant toward any but the "politically correct," it may command some measure of respect. As long as its fundamental appeal is to its own moral superiority, intolerance, and coercion, it deserves to be met with contempt by those who seek to live under standards of evidence and truth.
“The two great dividers are language and religion.” - Emanuel Kant
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Comment by James Robertson on July 6, 2011 at 2:10pm
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America’s Atheocracy
Jul 4, 2011 - James D. Conley - FirstThings
G. K. Chesterton said famously that America is “a nation with the soul of a church.” And he believed the Declaration of Independence formed the substance of our national soul.
But as we celebrate this Fourth of July, we need to recognize that some of the deepest problems in our public life can be traced to our collective neglect of America’s great founding document.
The Declaration establishes our common self-identity as Americans. It tells us that we are one nation under God, a people who believe that all men and women have God-given rights. It tells us that government exists for no other purpose than to defend and promote these rights. All this we find in the Declaration’s preamble, which still has the power to stir us.
America’s founders never intended to establish a religious government, let alone a theocracy. In fact, just the opposite. They specifically disallowed any state-sanctioned religion. Yet the government they did establish was founded on theistic, if not explicitly Christian, principles.
Many observers have identified a deep Christian influence in America’s founding documents—including such luminaries as Chesterton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jacques Maritain, John Courtney Murray, Martin Luther King Jr., and Blessed John Paul II.
Others see more the hand of the Enlightenment’s philosophical Deism at work.
Whatever its precise Christian pedigree, it cannot be denied that our government was founded upon a belief that human rights come from God, not governments, and that the world is in the hands of what the Declaration called “Nature’s God” and “the Supreme Judge of the World.”
It is true: the Constitution that America’s founders would later draft makes no mention of God. It is also true that this Constitution denies full rights to slaves and women.
But the Declaration’s belief in the divine origin of the human person is everywhere presumed. And throughout American history, this belief has served as a goad to the conscience, inspiring reforms and renewal in almost every generation. It has ensured that injustice, cowardice, and political expediency do not have to have the final word in our public affairs.
The Constitution and Declaration together form the “great wells of democracy” that express “the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage,” King wrote in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail.
America’s founders also shared a belief that religion mattered—not only for the private welfare of individuals but also for the commonweal. Charles Carroll, the Declaration’s only Catholic signatory, put it succinctly in a letter to James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution:
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure . . . are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.
Unfortunately, in our day, those “decrying the Christian religion” have seized the captain’s seat in America—in the academy, the media, the government and courts. The result is a kind of publicly enforced religious indifferentism, or what recent Popes have called “practical atheism.” The Constitution insists that no religious test shall ever be required for public office. But our society, in effect, now imposes an “irreligious test.” To take part in civic life, Americans must first agree to think and act as if they have no religious convictions or motivations.
America today is becoming what I call an atheocracy—a society that is actively hostile to religious faith and religious believers.
An atheocracy is a dangerous place, both morally and spiritually.
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Comment by James Robertson on July 7, 2011 at 1:29pm
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ADD: American Disconnectivity Disorder
By Reed Galen - Townhall.com
7/7/2011
We sit down in front of 68" 3D flat-screen that we got from the big box store last week. Who knew you could finance a television? It's been almost 15 minutes since we watched the news. We grimace as we watch a story about renewed fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've been there a long time. We remember a few people from high school or college who are in the military. The neighbors have a son in the Marine Corps, they hung that flag in their window; we're not exactly sure what it means. Those wars have cost too much, though. They should end them soon, we think.
We flip from the news, it's all too upsetting anyway, and land on the "Real Housewives of Topeka" to find Mary Lou arguing with Betty Jean about who's hog should have won at the state fair. But Mary Lou is not that worried; she's just announced that starting next week she'll be releasing an all-pork cookbook, getting her own talk show geared to 'Real American Women 35-53' "It's the View with Bacon!" Mary Lou laughs hysterically. Nary a muscle moves on her face though, she's also the newest Botox spokeswoman and is moving to LA, she says like an old-hand, because production is so much cheaper there and that's where everyone is. While we laugh at their antics, jealousy and resentment stir within us; "We could do that. She doesn't know the first thing about pigs; she just got lucky enough to get some stupid television show and now she's rich."
We grab our MacBook Air (the one with extra memory!) and surf the political websites. We shake our heads. They talk and talk and talk and give speeches and talk some more. They tell us that things are getting better; but they sure don't feel that way. They tell us we must raise the 'Debt Limit' or the whole world will end. We already hit our personal debt limit; that's when we had to sell the house and the wife cut up all but one of the credit cards. Then we read on CNBC that some big number 'missed analysts' expectations'. Who are these guys? And what are they expecting? Whatever it is, they need a new calculator…We almost spill our double latte when the house phone rings. The wife made us get it; for emergencies she said.
A man on the phone wants to ask us some questions about politics. We're happy to talk politics; we have a lot of opinions, and we want someone to hear them. The guy asks us how we feel about things. We feel bad, we say. Very bad. We tell them the government doesn't do enough to get people back to work. What? They're doing that? No, no, I don't like that at all. They should stop doing that. Taxes? No, I don't want my taxes to go up. They're too high as it is. Someone else's taxes? Sure, raise them; they're probably stealing their money anyway. Government spending? It's out of control! Cut Social Security and Medicare? Absolutely not! That's not fair!
Man, this guy will not stop with the questions. What do we think about other Americans? We don't really think about other Americans. What does it mean to be American? Um, mom, apple pie and the flag? We don't like these questions; they're not easy like the other ones. Are we done? Okay, good, actually have to do some work before the new week starts.
We flip through our spreadsheets and sales projections. Things look pretty good. They haven't been too happy at the office, though. Many of our friends lost their jobs and we had to take a pay cut and take on some more responsibility. What was the choice? That guy Barney would have done it in a heartbeat. Not likely to get a vacation this year, either; maybe next year if things get better.
Yeah, right!
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Comment by James Robertson on July 7, 2011 at 2:35pm
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Comment by James Robertson on July 8, 2011 at 8:44am
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- Ideas have consequences.
Ideas are not neutral. They are not irrelevant. Ideas often have real and deep impact. They can reach deeply into culture, change the minds of people, and then affect the way we (and others) think and live.
Richard Weaver wrote a book around 1950 entitled "Ideas have Consequences." In 1 Timothy 6:20, Paul urges Timothy to avoid ‘worldly and empty chatter and opposing arguments of what is falsely called knowledge.’ That implies that whether an idea is true or not is immaterial to the consequences it can have in the world and upon society.
The power of ideas is self-evident:
Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche heavily influenced the despots Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. Hitler took Neitzche’s book and distributed it to his SS brigade and to Italian Premier Benito Mussolini. That same work influenced Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf.
Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species influenced all of Western Culture, perhaps as much as any book besides the Holy Bible. Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, which influenced and shaped many of the world’s political systems for nearly a century. In fact, he was so affected by Darwinian writings that he wanted to dedicate the English version of Das Kapital to Darwin. The offer was rejected. Even so, books written in one century sometimes redefine life in the next.
It’s all about ideas.
As Christians,we should be aware of the great challenges being issued to us by the world and by those ideas that are falsely called knowledge (1 Tim. 6:20). The appropriate response we should have is to actively engage ideas and thought systems and to develop a healthy appetite for theology and her handmaiden, philosophy. That means becoming conversant about different belief systems, ideologies, and worldviews. We must guard against thinking of these things as being irrelevant and allowing indifference to lead us to inaction. Whether we realize it or not, our worldviews are being shaped by everything we see, hear, and read– and it is important to understand that. For those reasons, we must "study to show ourselves approved" and "be transformed by the renewing of our minds" by avoiding any hint of anti-intellectualism that might cause us to retreat from the battlefield of ideas.
As such, we have a responsibility, as those who have been called out, to be guardians of the truth– contending earnestly for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
By Frederick Cardoza | Mar. 13, 2011 | The GoodBookblog.com
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Comment by James Robertson on July 9, 2011 at 9:50am
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Ignoratione rerum bonarum et malarum maxime hominum vita vexatur “Through ignorance of what is good and what is bad, the life of men is greatly perplexed."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Comment by James Robertson on July 10, 2011 at 5:15am
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- Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalized medium of reason, that's all we have standing between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feeling.
- Felix Frankfurter
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Comment by James Robertson on July 10, 2011 at 2:32pm
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As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom.
- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
© 2012 Created by Norm Fisher.
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