Both Sides

 I confess. I went on Facebook tonight, and I immediately almost got in a fight.

One of online Lutheranism's great sophists was in the middle of telling us all how there are lots of orthodox left wing people, and we should make sure that we platform them alongside the conservatives.

And while I will grant that I hope dearly to see many of my political opposites in the resurrection, surely it will be only through the grace of God and their own stupidity.

This is harsh, but it is no where near as harsh as the place prepared for those who hold that there is no fixed external truth, that all is relative, and who have actually followed that thought to the logical conclusion.

And it is easy to see partisanship in the distinction now, because the people who the statement above would apply to today can easily apply to many on the left and right. The post religious right is strong. There are trailer parks and discord chats full of people who find Jesus Christ to be weak and effete. Who long for the religion of Odin, Rome, or the third reich. They are all going to burn, too.

My favorite way to offend good christian men who have enjoyed too much of the alt right kool-aid is to challenge them with the fact that no man is greater than John the baptist, when he checks none of the boxes on their most recent favorite youtube video and had absolutely zero bitches.

John is the greatest man who ever lived because God said so. And on top of this, he was given an office that only he can have--the last prophet before the messiah. But beyond this, as a man who preached repentance to power. Who made straight the way with boldness, and preached the law even who he absolutely knew it would be his head. The second last, and second boldest, of the prophets, who went meekly to die even as the prophet that was to follow.

If you feel like Alexander is getting robbed of his rightful title, you are a nephew.

But I can  have more hope for these fools, because although the reclaim tattoo on their chests is as ambiguous as their own philosophical concepts for what they are reclaiming, and they have no idea what deus vult even means, they at least know that wisdom came some time before them, and are seeking to catch hold of it again.

On the other side of the coin...

If you are a disciple of Foucault, or Rawls, or Sen, then you embrace a materialist reality with no fixed external reference point. There are only systems of power, utility, and the search for fairness, or at least advantage. But you cannot hold these things and God and his divine nature to be true in the same breath.

You cannot be a knowing Marxist and a good christian, because the two start from fundamentally different first principles. We believe in felicitous inconsistencies, and Lord grant this dissonance to all who are attempting to hold both at the same time. Save them in spite of themselves. You can be both and an idiot and be saved. God be praised.

But you cannot knowingly and willingly hold that all truth is relative and be saved, with all that it entails. Pharaoh is damned. If you believe in God but dislike what he has to offer, then it is not to your profit.

And in this do not see a criticism of those who say "we must make provision for the poor." I am the bleeding heart distributist in the room. I do hold the sometimes controversial opinion that government must, for the sake of justice, make some provision for the poor.

Our own history is evidence enough that the worthy are failed frequently in times of want, and there is a certain risk I will accept that the unworthy get some as well. The details get down into policy, which heavens knows you do not want me to start on here.

But that gets nowhere near an allowance that the 'general will' of the 'nation' supersedes the natural law, or that the only goods are economic goods, or that islam is equally valid, or that there is no difference between male and female.

Jesus Christ is radical, in that he is the fulfillment of the law, not a departure from it. It has not passed away; He has not passed away, but is ascended as a man.

So the truth is fixed, and it is good news for us. Unchanging. Reliable. Far more reliable than a justice that shifts based upon our birth and circumstance.

And one might raise the objection that political and divine justice bear no relation, but that is the war cry of the adversary. How could they not be related. Is he not the lord of Heaven and Earth?

I will grant. I am deeply displeased with many political pundits who cite religion as a core driver of their policy. Most of them are well meaning heretics, but there is simply more hope for them, and more to glean from them, than there is from those who base there policy and philosophy in teachings that have no room for God.

Maybe Erin Hawley is a pundit, but she is a woman whose politically prominent husband made a bold and solid confession of faith before meeting his death. She probably has some good things to say about courage and hardship in this life.

If you are mad because she is not offset by someone who is politically left wing....

Reflect strongly on your convictions. Where do your ideas come from? Are they congruent with a fixed external source of truth who hates sin and redeems us regardless, or is it our right by existence.

And when you have answered the questions, go stand with your people.