Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 30
March 16, 2018
“Total Defense” Plans & the Second Amendment
Sweden and Finland are not members of NATO. But they are on Russia’s doorstep. During the Cold War, they developed plans for “total defense,” in which the whole population would be mobilized to resist an invasion. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Sweden let their mobilization plans lapse, though Finland kept theirs going. Now with Russia […]
March 15, 2018
Shutting Down Faith-Based Adoption Agencies
Traditionally, Christian and other religious organizations have taken the lead in arranging adoptions. But new laws and policies forbid adoption agencies from “discriminating” against same-sex couples who want to adopt a child. This goes against the religious convictions of many faith-based agencies. The result is that a number of church-affiliated adoption agencies have been forced […]
Has Liberal Democracy Failed?
The conservative thinker Patrick Deneen has published a book entitled Why Liberalism Failed. He’s not talking about liberalism in the sense of left-leaning Democrats, but in the sense of “liberal”meaning “freedom.” He talks about the failure of democracy, but not in the sense that Trump got elected, Congress is dysfunctional, and our politics is polarized. […]
March 14, 2018
Why The Protestant Bible Has Fewer Books than the Catholic Bible
If a Protestant Christians gets into a discussion with a Roman Catholic and brings up the authority of the Bible, the Catholic will often come back with a riposte like this: “What Bible? You Protestants don’t follow the Bible. You threw out seven of the books you didn’t like. At least we Catholics have the […]
Why Christians Support Trump
Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian who was formerly George W. Bush’s speechwriter, has written a searing article published in The Atlantic. He asks the question, why is it that so many white evangelical Christians–4 out of 5, far more than voted for Ronald Reagan–support Donald Trump, even though he would seem to be the antithesis of […]
March 13, 2018
The Self and the Fear of Death
Buddhist monks believe that the self is an illusion. Though the unenlightened become reincarnated into new selves, the goal of monasticism is to transcend the self with its attachments to merge into the oneness of all things. So it would follow that Buddhist monks and perhaps others who reject the existence of the self should […]
Back to the Gilded Age
Celebrity business titans! Immigration controversy! Booming cities and dying rural areas! Yellow journalism! Political chaos! Scandals! Populist demagogues! That describes the “Gilded Age” of the late 19th century, with its “robber barons” like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller. And it describes the economic, political, and social scene of today, with our high-tech barons like Elon Musk, […]
March 11, 2018
Grandparenthood, Again
Our daughter here in Australia had her baby! In the photo you can see John, in his cricket uniform, holding Hannah, happy to have another sister. She was born on Saturday afternoon at 2:20 p.m., and at 7:30 p.m. of that same day–a mere 5 hours later–mother and child came home. (I don’t know if […]
Politics as Self-Expression
Politics has become self-expression. Concepts are not either true or false, but pure or impure. People want to transform society into an extension of the self. Everything has become political. Universities have become sanctuaries of archaic religion. So says political scientist Mark Lilla in The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics. His book attempts to explain […]
March 9, 2018
Cleansing the Temples
The Gospel reading for last Sunday was about Jesus cleansing the Temple. The sermon we heard here in Australia reminded us that Jesus continues to cleanse temples, overturning the tables and driving out the money changers in the Temple that is the church and the Temple that is the believer. We attended Bethlehem Lutheran Church, […]
