For some people, the warriors of the populist right must be replaced by warriors of the populist left. For these people, Trump has revealed an ugly authoritarian tendency in American society that has to be fought with relentless fervor and moral clarity.
For others, it’s Trump’s warrior mentality itself that must be replaced. Warriors on one side inevitably call forth warriors on the other, and that just means more culture war, more barbarism, more dishonesty and more dysfunction.
.. The truth is plural. There is no one and correct answer to the big political questions. Instead, politics is usually a tension between two or more views, each of which possesses a piece of the truth.
.. Leadership is about determining which viewpoint is more needed at that moment
.. Politics is a limited activity. Zealots look to the political realm for salvation and self-fulfillment. They turn politics into a secular religion and ultimately an apocalyptic war of religion because they try to impose one correct answer on all of life. Moderates believe that, at most, government can create a platform upon which the beautiful things in life can flourish. But it cannot itself provide those beautiful things.
.. Government can create economic and physical security and a just order, but meaning, joy and the good life flow from loving relationships, thick communities and wise friends. The moderate is prudent and temperate about political life because he is so passionate about emotional, spiritual and intellectual life.
.. Because they are syncretistic, they are careful to spend time in opposing camps, always opening lines of communication. The wise moderate can hold two or more opposing ideas together in her mind at the same time.
.. Beware the danger of a single identity. Before they brutalize politics, warriors brutalize themselves. Instead of living out several identities — Latina/lesbian/gun-owning/Christian — that pull in different directions, they turn themselves into monads. They prioritize one identity, one narrative and one comforting distortion.
.. Moderates are problematic members of their party. They tend to be hard on their peers and sympathetic to their foes.
Christian Theology & Transgenderism
Is there a way in which the transgender movement is different than the debate over homosexuality?
AW: Yes, definitely. But first, let me note that they demonstrate some similarity because underlying both issues is the question of teleology. In the case of sexual desire, the question becomes: How are sexual desires to be directed and for what purpose? In the case of the transgender phenomenon, the question is: Does human embodiment have an objective and discernible nature? Both assume some degree of plasticity to human nature that I think violates both Scripture and natural law.
.. Seen in this light, transgenderism is a far more foundational and consequential issue because it makes us unable to direct the totality of the person toward any concrete goal of personhood, not just their sexual desires.
.. Are Christianity and transgenderism compatible?
AW: Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6 v 9-11 offer a helpful way to answer this question:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Paul’s words show that there are practices and lifestyles that, if left unrepented of, can prevent someone from inheriting—that is, having a place in—the kingdom of God. To live as a Christian is to accept God’s authority over our own.
.. Transgender identities fall into that category — they are not compatible with following Christ. A person’s gender identity reflects how they define what it means to be a human being. That self-definition will either correspond to God’s revelation in his word or it will not. God has created human beings in his own image as male and female. Our identity, therefore, is defined by God in his purposes for his creation and in his new creation in Christ. The design of humanity is purposeful and good, and part of our design is that we are men and women. To deny or overturn that distinction is to nullify God’s revelation both in nature and in Scripture. The Bible calls it suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1 v 18).
.. But it does mean that a settled rejection of God’s purposes for us as male or female cannot be reconciled with following Christ. Someone can embrace a transgender identity or find their identity in Christ, but not both.
.. Likewise, it would be possible to identify as transgender and also be trusting Christ as Lord because they have not yet realized the implications of the lordship of Christ in this area of their life and identity. As and when they do realize it, a Christian person would change their behavior in this area, with God’s help.
.. the idea of maleness and femaleness are integral to human flourishing and social stability. A theology of the body is missing in most churches, and if there is one,
.. progressive judicial philosophy means picking a desired outcome and reasoning backwards until the Constitution can justify it
.. Yes, its impact on children and adolescents.
Children who express gender confusion are now encouraged to explore it.
.. Most kids grow out of their confusion, but society’s affirmation makes it more likely that children will go down this path. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
.. An article recently highlighted a transgender day camp. One of the paragraphs reads, “Some change their name or pronouns daily, to see what feels right.” That sounds polite, tolerant, and very social justice-y. But that’s unbridled radicalism dressed up as effete 21st century parenting.
.. there’s a growing number of voices that are talking about transgender skepticism and some who regret transitioning and who have transitioned back — what’s called “Desisting.”
.. Perhaps the most outlandish example of transgender overreach is the attempt to brandish “genital preference” as some form of transphobia. What is that, you ask? Without getting too graphic, if a person has a revulsion against having attempted intercourse with someone of the same anatomy, but who has a different “gender identity” — that’s transphobic.
.. So, for example, imagine a scenario where a man dates a transgender woman (a biological male). If the man objects to having intimate relations with the transgender woman because the transgender “woman” has a penis, that’s now bigoted, because anatomy is irrelevant to gender identity.
.. “Affirm me, or else you’re harming me.” How can conversation and debate ever occur when such zero-sum inanities are thrown about? When did it become acceptable in public discourse to reduce disagreement down to the level of personal harm? People who hate Christianity do not do me any harm. In fact, the Scriptures portend a future where that’s to be expected. Now, if there’s actual harm, or threatened harm, that’s a different situation.
.. where critique does occur, we’re told it is tantamount to violence. If I can be so blunt, this has the seeds of totalitarianism in it. If you can get society to believe that men can become women, and women can become men, what can’t you get society to believe? The language of “dignitary harm” is ever-expansive in its use today, and it may be the most weaponized asset used against religious conservatives in the years ahead.
.. Why must I affirm their understanding of the issue but them not affirm mine? Why must I assent to the belief that suppressing one’s innate biology and nature is healthy? I will never subscribe to the idea that psychological impairment which incites troubled souls to take irreversible action is ever loving, kind, or compassionate. Conservatives and Christians can play the affirmation card, too. So use progressives’ language and arguments against progressives. Make them play by their own rules. Tolerance and inclusion are two-way street.
.. First, as a general principle, parents ought to have the right to send their children to a school that does not teach contrary to what the parents believe — especially on a subject like this. Parental rights are at stake because a child is being exposed to conversations and situations that some parents are wholly opposed.
.. First, as a general principle, parents ought to have the right to send their children to a school that does not teach contrary to what the parents believe — especially on a subject like this. Parental rights are at stake because a child is being exposed to conversations and situations that some parents are wholly opposed.
I’m a White Man. Hear Me Out.
he argued, had hurt the Democratic Party. He maintained that too intense a focus on each minority group’s discrete persecution comes at the expense of a larger, unifying vision.
.. But what too many took issue with was, well, his identity. “White men: stop telling me about my experiences!” someone later scrawled on a poster that was put up to advertise a talk, “Identity Is Not Politics,” that he gave at Wellesley College.
.. he asserts that “classroom conversations that once might have begun, I think A, and here is my argument, now take the form, Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B. This makes perfect sense if you believe that identity determines everything. It means that there is no impartial space for dialogue. White men have one ‘epistemology,’ black women have another. So what remains to be said?”
.. But she worries that awareness disclaimers and privilege apologies have ferried us to a silly, self-involved realm of oppression Olympics. They promote the idea that people occupying different rungs of privilege or victimization can’t possibly grasp life elsewhere on the ladder... what people in a given victim group sometimes seem to be saying is: “You must understand my experience, and you can’t understand my experience.”“They argue both, so people shrug their shoulders and walk away,” he said... But I question the wisdom of turning categories into credentials when it comes to politics and public debate. I reject the assumptions — otherwise known as prejudices — that certain life circumstances prohibit sensitivity and sound judgment while other conditions guarantee them. That appraises the packaging more than it does the content. It ignores the complexity of people. It’s reductive... At the beginning of this column I shared the sorts of personal details that register most strongly with those Americans who tuck each of us into some hierarchy of blessedness and affliction. So you know some important things about me, but not the most important ones: how I responded to the random challenges on my path, who I met along the way, what I learned from them, the degree of curiosity I mustered and the values that I honed as a result.
Richard Rohr Meditation: Our Ultimate Identity
Merton doesn’t question the reality and importance of the empirical self we call our personality. We must deeply respect our whole person, including the day-by-day realities of life and the self that is formed by them. What Merton does say, however, is that when the relative identity of the ego is taken to be my deepest and only identity, when I am thought to be nothing but the sum total of all my relationships, when I cling to this self and make it the center around which and for which I live, I then make my empirical identity into the false self. My own self then becomes the obstacle to realizing my true self.
The true self is our whole self before God, the self we were created to become, our self in Christ.