Preface to "The Choice: Flawed Liberators OR Clueless Thugs?"

 

In my almost 40 years of being a Lutheran pastor, I have never before publicly advocated for a specific presidential candidate for two reasons.  Firstly, I have sought to limit my preaching and teaching contents to the Gospel of Jesus Christ because I regard that as my chief calling.  Secondly, my goal to be inclusive has led me to refrain from coercing others to embrace political views (as opposed to biblical teaching) that I have no right to impose onto others.  Yet in light of the present circumstances I must make an exception.  I sincerely judge that the stakes from the choice we soon make will lead to an outcome that is so consequential that the two visions for society will not resemble each other at all.  One vision will perpetuate, from our heritage, the personal freedoms, safety, and economic opportunities multitudes have sought after from all over the world, while the other vision will entail submission to decrees by a ruling class which will abolish personal liberties.  As a Christian Pastor and theologian I hold that only a worldview that is based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ has any capacity to produce the first vision.  The denial of God, on the other hand, issues in nihilism and the degradations that logically follow from it.  

The Choice: Flawed Liberators OR Clueless Thugs? part 1

               “Let him among you who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7) 

              It is an absolute fact that every disciple Jesus called, and indeed every human author of Holy Scripture, was a miserable sinner, just like me…and you too.  I don’t state this to anger anyone.  But if anyone imagines themselves to be righteous before God, they are not allowing God’s law to expose the inner truth about themselves (1 John 1:7).  Indeed any dismissal of evidence of any kind that favors the existence of God renders such a person guilty of the first sin St. Paul mentions (Romans 1:18f).  Further-more, whoever imposes their expectations onto others while failing to adhere to the same standards (again, of their own design), is both a hypocrite and a violator of the golden rule.  Despite doubts by critical textual critics,¹ I am convinced Jesus said the words recorded in John 8 for the reason that his challenge to the woman’s judgers is morally superior, in the manner that is be expected only of the true Son of God.  Similarly, people participating in toppling statues of our Founders have neither the moral authority nor the right to do so.  They are to the contrary imposing on historical figures criteria that are far more stringent than God applied to the biblical writers.  We all should plead for His mercy instead.  

               Neither do these self-appointed “revolutionaries” demonstrate any potential qualification to lead anyone, let alone an entire society, into uncharted waters.  Their credibility indeed is undermined right up front by their track record (televised) of refusing to submit their agenda to intellectual scrutiny.  To the contrary they merely out-shout and  bludgeon their dissenters.  For similar reasons, they offer no grounds at all for why anyone should trust that their brand of defiance of people in authority has any capacity to usher in a harmonious new world, or even a society remotely as just as our own admittedly imperfect one.  Recently I saw on TV one rioter berating police with his presumptive taunts that police don’t have intellectual skills to do “college-level” thinking.  I judge to the contrary that his obnoxious presence merely raised doubts about the credibility of universities as a whole (see below), even as he exposed as questionable the intellectual weight behind the college degree(s) that he claimed to earn. 

               More to the point, anarchists’[2] agenda depends on the distorted parody of US history that they impose.  Firstly, their methods of highlighting what they judge as the “unsavory” aspects of our record reject classical academic methods of truth-seeking[3] by censoring all arguments that thwart their goals.  And their “motivational” tools rely on pressuring for a compliance that is enforced by threats of harm. 

By contrast, authentic truth-seeking, as opposed to brain-washing, seeks out all substantiated evidence that is relevant to a given question.  It also frames the historical details correctly in light of its larger context.  And it debates in complete freedom the relative merits of each relevant hypothesis. 

In a court of law defendants and witnesses “solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” because deceiving others does not necessarily require outright lying.  Deceit can be advanced by employing selected trivial “facts” while deliberately omitting other details that put a substantially different perspective on the circumstances under investigation.  For example, Dr. John Ellis, recent President of the California Association of Scholars (CAS), argues that politicizing the teaching within the University of California system (and by implication many other academic institutions) has seriously damaged the integrity of their “product” with respect to framing our history as a nation.  This neglect consists not only of the cessation of teaching US history as a requirement in order for students to be granted university degrees.  Their neglect of profoundly vital facts also distorts what it does impart.

My entire article can be accessed at my website: www.christianityontheoffense.com/articles

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[1] Charles M. Laymon. The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary of the Bible. (Abingdon, 1971), p. 718.

[2] Anarchy dismisses the very concept of rational authority.  Apart from God, no such authority exists, but only raw power enforced by thugs.  

[3] John M. Ellis. The Breakdown of Higher Education: How it Happened, the Damage it Does, and What Can Be Done. (Encounter Books, 2020), p. 39.  He writes, “Perhaps the most important difference between political activism and academic thinking is that they are polar opposites in the way they deal with alternative explanations.”   

In What Way is "Science the Answer"?

 

(My letter to The Daily American newspaper (Somerset PA) as a reply to their guest editorial from the St. Louis Dispatch titled “Science the Answer,” dated August 3, 2020.  I was limited to 250 words.)

Although science indeed is the answer to strictly scientific concerns, it cannot be the entire answer to considerations which cross over into non-scientific, yet equally consequential, realms.  With respect to the Covid-19 onslaught, these relevant non-scientific concerns include pursuing broad-scale economic vitality that is necessary for funding societal needs, seeking quality education for students of all ages, and encouraging businesses of all kinds which will not only secure households financially, but also ensure commerce in general so that societies will thrive.  Insofar as these vital aspects of life are neglected, societies will begin failing.  It is no slam on science to acknowledge that its insights cannot, by itself, address whether risking the reopening of social venues is or is not wise.  Since that decision is not as black-or-white as the editorial suggested, its authors’ venomous attacks on President Trump actually reflect insufficient reflection on the part of the editors.

               Indeed, Leftists routinely turn their own blind eye to scientific facts that are not ambiguous.  Firstly, the pro-choice claim that a fetus is an integral part of its mother’s body is contradicted by the scientific facts that its blood type and genome each differ from the mother’s.  Secondly, for purposes of relaxing social restroom and shower-facility boundaries, Leftists give priority to transgender’s subjecttive sense of their sexual identity as opposed to the objective scientific indicators which include both one’s anatomy and their DNA code.  To make matters worse, the scientific community in both cases remains silent over such non-science.

Sincerely,

Gary Jensen, Pastor