tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15586866.post1347300479750683947..comments2023-12-24T12:00:43.714-05:00Comments on Tune: Kings Lynn: The Next Problem BishopC. Wingatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13335513246185768918noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15586866.post-45224386165513790752014-04-02T13:35:05.248-04:002014-04-02T13:35:05.248-04:00I don't know whether you've ever seen the ...I don't know whether you've ever seen the PBS series <i>Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?</i>, which is based on and follows the undergraduate course of the same name taught by Michael Sandel at Harvard. It is all about philosophy and moral decision making; I daresay it would interest you.<br /><br />I mention it here because there's a moment in one of the episodes where Sandel confronts a student who is wishy-washy in his answer to some question.<br /><br />Sandel: Do you think Bentham is wrong to add up the collective happiness?<br />Student: I don't think he's wrong, but I think murder's murder in any case.<br />Sandel: Yeah, well then Bentham has to be wrong! If you're right; he's wrong!<br />Student: Okay, then he's wrong.<br />Sandel: Alright! Thank you; well done.<br /><br />This has remained with me, as what Sandel is doing is pushing through a particular kind of intellectual rot in our contemporary American life:<br /><br />We believe that all ideas are created equal. Except in the world of academia, whose debates we believe to be silly and removed from our everyday lives, ideas are not to be discussed, advocated for, or condemned. As Jamie Whyte points out, our correct saying that everyone is entitled to his opinion is deployed in the defense of the incorrect notion that everyone is entitled to have his opinion be right.<br /><br />This is <i>exactly</i> the kind of nonsense that Bishop Robinson is propagating in his column, and it dearly afflicts our mission in the Church, as you say.<br /><br />If the creeds are true, and Jesus was and is and is indeed to come, then a lot of the other stuff out there must be wrong, or at least incomplete. If you're right, as Sandel pointed out, he has to be wrong. Two conflicting statements cannot both be true at the same time, just because we don't wish to offend. Up is not down, no matter how unpleasant we may find the reality.<br /><br />This is a debate from which we shy away in our pulpits and our classes. This is to the detriment of the faith, a so much of the debate needed in church is not between Christianity and Islam, or Hindu, or some other religion, but between Christianity and the various idols of rank secularism and market capitalism, which do not now nor ever will make us either happy or whole.<br /><br />You're exactly right about the co-opting of theology by upper middle class liberal American mores, a particularly vile precinct where nothing matters save our sense of how wonderful we are. It is a place whose only tenet is that all will be well if we people just smile on our brother; let us love one another, right now.<br /><br />As Dr. Evil said, there's nothing more pathetic than an aging hipster.<br /><br />Especially when he wears a clerical collar.AAKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08447283075459290675noreply@blogger.com