Brian G. Mattson's Blog, page 2

Who’s To Blame?

First, head on over to Amazon and order this book.  It’s scheduled for release next week.

Second, let me tell you a number of reasons why you should head on over to Amazon to order this book. I’ll start with the least important reason and move on to the most important.

1. David Bahnsen is my friend, and it would be gratifying for his book to be a success. 

2.  The book is engaging, well-written, and reasonably short. You’ll easily finish it.

3. The pure optics of a successful Wall Street wealth manager telling working class people on “Main Street” that they are a significant part of the problem is strangely a breath of fresh air. Because truth is always a breath of fresh air.  

4. The book is uncanny in its way of illuminating the key issues on a host of topics about which people simultaneously feel passionately and yet know far too little. The financial crisis, Wall Street, Free Trade, Immigration, crony capitalism, school choice, higher education, government corruption, and more. In short: you will know far more after reading this book.

5. David has the ability (the apple didn’t fall far from the tree) of distilling complex, messy issues to their core problems, and then to identify prudent, actionable solutions. In short: you will think better after reading this book.

6. The noise level of our cultural moment is deafening. Clenched fists, raw throats, pointed fingers, everybody screaming at everybody with accusations of blame for our problems. Left v. Right, Conservative v. Progressive, Republican v. Democrat, Elite v. Working Class, Urban v. Rural, Establishment v. The People; it is mind-numbing white noise. David’s is one voice you need to listen to because he will not just tell you what you want to hear. With unvarnished honesty, with no immunity for anybody, any “side,” any institution, he will likely expose some blind spots and tell you who is really to blame, and (uncomfortably enough) it will not be the bogeyman you think. In short: you will be more self-aware after reading this book.

6. David does not just orbit around in the intellectual upper atmosphere; he brings it down to where the rubber meets the road. His penultimate chapter is filled with practical advice on how you can overcome your addiction to blame, paving the way for you to flourish in your potential as an image-bearer of God. In short: you will become more successful after reading this book.

7. If everybody in our country read this book and took it to heart, we would wake up the next day in a very different place, politically and culturally. That will not happen, of course. But what if enough of us read this book and took it to heart? Who knows what a small groundswell of people committed to personal responsibility rather than the “blame game” might accomplish in, oh, say, a generation or so?

Crisis of Truth: Why Fake News Isn't News in a Post-Truth World

 The following are my prepared remarks for the 2017 Center for Cultural Leadership Symposium on the "Crisis of Responsibility." 

One day in college freshman English I was paired with a young lady for a class exercise. We had each written a short paper on any subject we chose, and we were to exchange papers for mutual critique. One of us would stand and deliver our paper to the class, and the other would then respond.

I have no recollection at all what I wrote, but I have never forgotten her topic. An amateur mishmash of Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault (impressively not stolen from Wikipedia, since it hadn’t been invented), this young lady explained to the class—using well-crafted English—that language has no fixed meaning. She enthusiastically proposed that all propositions were nothing more than pure propaganda, political power plays all the way down. Truth claims, she claimed, are lies and mere tools designed to oppress and marginalize others.

At last the time arrived for my required public response, and I uttered only a single sentence: “Nobody who really believes that language is meaningless would bother writing a paper about it.” The teacher and class roared with laughter and the poor young lady blushed. The year was 1995.

It was easy to not take her seriously. And yet. I wonder if that radical young lady—no doubt now a tenure-track faculty member of a gender-studies department at some university—is having the last laugh.

Another faded memory from those days half a lifetime ago: My philosophy professor inviting me into his office one day and praising my critical thinking and writing abilities. “But,” he said quietly, “You should really try to avoid the ‘T’ word.” T-Word?

He meant “Truth.”

Looking back it seems I lived through times I did not fully comprehend. We were all well-aware of postmodernism, of course. Quintessential postmodernist Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone would enjoy fifteen minutes of fame. I don’t think he thought this would be true of postmodernism itself. We were in the midst of its own “fifteen minutes,” a relatively brief moment of time when western culture had a bout of nausea and vomited forth ravings fittingly indistinguishable from Nietzsche’s “Madman.” In the 1990s, it seemed every single book published by Christian outfits was about the dangerous relativism and nihilism of postmodernism or, alternatively, all the exciting and wonderful possibilities of postmodernism. And then:

It was all gone.

In principle, it ended at precisely 8:46 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. At that moment a large airplane filled with people and jet fuel was purposely crashed, followed shortly by more. They crashed not only into high-rise buildings; they also crashed into the pretentious fantasy world where the “T-word” is considered profanity. It seems impossible to overstate the power of this jolt, not just sociopolitically and economically, but intellectually and morally. Nietzsche had dreamed of moving “beyond good and evil,” but even the likes of atheist gadfly Christopher Hitchens suddenly saw this as, well, the madness it is. And he was not alone. What few people realize is that after September 11th, 2001 philosophy departments all across the western world widely rejected postmodernism. It lay smoldering in lower Manhattan.

All those books published by Christian publishing houses? Just the other day I weeded through my book collection and put at least a dozen of them in the Goodwill pile. I will never have use for them.

Then again, viruses are not so easy to eradicate. Postmodernism in its essence is ideological Ebola, a disease whose purpose is to literally deconstruct—liquefy—the fiber and tissue of healthy organs. Viruses move around and adapt. The “true believer” postmodernists lived on in or were shuffled to their numerous “studies” departments—themselves residual artifacts of a breakdown of a unified field of knowledge—and there they remained undeterred.

Viruses also bide their time. On the public intellectual front postmodernism went into a kind of dormancy. These were the years of tedious essays on “Post-postmodernism” and various attempts to create some new philosophy from the ashes of the World Trade Center. Some normalcy returned, creating an illusion that wholesale assault on the very idea of truth is a thing of the past. A brief fit. A mere spasm.

How naive.

Surveying the scene in 2017, it seems clear to me that the virus had, in fact, infected all of the vital organs of our body politic and however much it had been marginalized and pressed to the crackpot fringes of our society, all indications are that, like Queen Jadis of Narnia, the witch is back. Or, if you prefer—and pardon the French—substitute a word that rhymes with “witch.”

Isaiah 59:14-15:

“So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.”

We could spend a great deal of time exploring all the ways that truth is stumbling in our streets as the virus of intellectual and moral relativism has metastasized in our every cultural institution: media, entertainment, academia, the courts, and politics. It scarcely needs pointing out that our culture has no broad, shared notion of truth. We are far from the times when everyone could affirm something as “self-evident,” as our nation’s founders did in the Declaration of Independence.

This helps to explain why the all-important thing has become “winning.” Once we have deconstructed the idea of truth as objective and transcendent—something to which we are bound whether we like it or not—and replaced it with identity politics and its liberation/oppression nexus, it should surprise no one that all we are left with is “truths”—as in, “your” truth and “my” truth and “our” truth and “their” truth. And all these “truths” are inevitably locked in a pitched battle to see who “wins.” My fellow student’s laughable words were actually a deadly serious prophecy of what everyone would one day (apparently) believe: all truth claims are propaganda— political power plays all the way down, instruments of manipulation to achieve a self-serving end.

And people really do seem to believe this, even when they vocally deny it. Recently CNN aired an advertisement that goes like this:

“This is an apple.

Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana.

They might scream, ‘Banana, banana, banana,’ over and over and over again.

They might put ‘banana’ in all caps.

You might even start to believe that this is a banana.

But it’s not.

This is an apple.”

It’s a strong and true appeal, to be sure. Alas, it comes from a media outlet that routinely claims that men can have babies and shames anyone who says otherwise. Set in that context, it is difficult to see this as anything but propaganda—a convenient and cynical effort to persuade viewers to believe them, to trust them, that they might thereby exert power and influence over the masses when it comes to more controversial beliefs like their novel ideas about the birds and the bees. Well-intentioned or not, even their truth claims about the nature of truth claims is completely cynical.

Speaking of cynicism, CNNs biggest critic, The President of the United States, also certainly gives the impression of caring about truth. He routinely chastises that very network for broadcasting “fake” news. This, too, might be a strong appeal, were it not for the fact that plenty of what he deems “fake” isn’t fake at all. And, really, are we to believe that the man who believes the National Enquirer “actually [has] a very good record of being right,” and is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize is really concerned about fake news? Seriously? This is feigned concern that is entirely and transparently instrumental to his own political ends.

“All truth claims are political power plays,” she said. Those words haunt me because it appears everyone now believes it, or at least acts like they believe it even in the act of saying they don’t believe it.

In a post-Truth world, all news is fake news.

But I don’t want to talk about the media, even if that is where Pilate’s perennial question, “What is Truth?” crops up most often. I don’t want to talk about the academy, even as hordes of fascist students invent their own truths and violently protest anyone who dares to disagree. I don’t want to talk about the law, even as we have a robed potentate, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who believes and (sadly) rules that “at the heart of liberty” is the right to invent one’s own truth. I don’t want to talk about the entertainment world, where rank hypocrisy is on full display as they are busy tarring and feathering people for actually practicing the alleged truths they’ve long preached—the serpent swallowing its own tail. I don’t want to talk about politics, which—well, let’s be honest: they’ve never been on particularly good terms with honesty and truth.

If only there was something else to talk about! Some other institution, some other group of people, somebody, anywhere who puts a premium on the truth. Oh, I forgot: there is a group of people whose charter it is to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, but in my defense they’re pretty easy to forget these days.

If we do turn our attention to them, it turns out they’re all just as interested in “winning” as the rest of the culture. Many are the court prophets—er, Christian leaders who will morally rationalize absolutely anything, it seems. I mean, what’s a little statutory rape when there’s a Senate seat to protect? I mean, after all, Joseph of Nazareth married a teenager, and, heck, some 14-year olds are pretty hot. I truly wish I was making up this nauseating stuff.

It’s easy to cherry-pick and beat up on the likes of Falwell, Graham, Dobson, Jeffress, and others. Maybe they aren’t really representative of Christians in general. I’m sorry to rain on the parade, but actually the Public Religion Research Institute just rained on the parade. In 2011 they polled America with this question: “Can an elected official who commits an immoral act in their private life still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life?” Now, I must say that I’m not a fan of that question. It needs to be a “should so-and-so be entrusted with public duties,” rather than a “can they?” question. Be that as it may, Americans across the board said, “No,” but evangelicals were the most adamant. 61 percent said, “No!”

When asked the same question six years later 72 percent—seventy-two percent—of evangelical Christians answered, “Yes.”

That certainly sounds like they all changed their minds in a fairly brief period of time. But here is the thing we must—we must—grasp: they didn’t change at all. What changed was that suddenly answering “Yes” to that question was to their perceived political advantage. How clarifying. Ideological Ebola had already liquefied the moral fiber of God’s people, right along with everyone else; it just took an opportune moment to manifest itself. That old chestnut, “American Christianity is 3,000 miles wide and an inch deep” has turned out to be true. I don’t know why that has shocked me, but it has.

In the 2016 election cycle I published my final appeal at The Resurgent. It was entitled, “Freedom or Integrity: Evangelicals, Choose One.” I argued that Hillary Clinton was a direct threat to our freedom. And I argued that Donald Trump was a direct threat to our integrity. I warned that under Clinton, we might be muzzled. But under Trump, we might be free to broadcast from the rooftops, but everyone would ignore us. Rightly ignore us. All of our moral capital will have been squandered. I take no pleasure in being right, but recent events have convinced me more than ever that I was right.

And that means the most pressing “crisis of truth” is not “out there,” among “them.” It is our crisis. This is our problem. Being the light of the world and salt of the earth is our job. Remember: those verses I read from Isaiah were not judgments against pagan nations; they were judgments against God’s people.

Now, I went to great pains in the fall of 2016 to assure people that given the situation I respected them if they decided to vote for Donald Trump. But I took equal pains to remind people that this vote, this choice, was not remotely a mandate to lie—that is, to lionize, cheerlead, rationalize, defend, and walk in lock-step with so lacking a leader. To do so is to embrace the very postmodernist deconstruction we ostensibly oppose; it is to prioritize “winning” over integrity and truth. And I can hear my old classmate’s last laugh: “All truth claims really are just political power plays, all the way down.”

In summary, then: the “crisis of truth” cuts through every institution and every tribe, and we Christians are no exception. This is no “us” versus “them.” Intellectual and moral relativism may have seemed dormant these last fifteen years, but it has been rotting and destroying the fiber and tissue of our society all along.

What must we do? Let me sketch a few things.

1. Repent. Judgment begins with the house of God, and the message of Isaiah is every bit as relevant today as it was then: “Return to me, and I will return to you.”

2. We must stop thinking in purely horizontal terms. Cultural conflict is not a “zero-sum” game. That is precisely what the postmodern denial of transcendence wants you to do. It wants you to live as though God is not acting in the here-and-now. But we must think vertically. When we leave God out of the equation, as though he is not with us, blessing us, ruling us, leading us, that is when we embrace the pragmatism of adopting the enemy’s standards and tactics. That is the root of “whataboutism.” "But they do it; they aren’t going to stop doing it; we must do it, too." This is why the Israelites of Isaiah’s day were tempted to succumb to realpolitik and make allegiances with Egypt rather than trust the power and promises of God. Because, hey, the world’s ways seem to work! The faithless, unspoken assumption is that God’s ways don’t work.

3. Engage the world with integrity. Play by God’s rules. Speak the truth in love, even when it is unpopular, and make the world muzzle you. Stop simply going with the flow of what’s popular in your particular tribe.

4. Cultivate moral fiber in yourself, your home, your church, and in your community. Strengthen the immune system of our civil society—we do not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

5. Deeply absorb this truth, which is perhaps the most obvious thing in the Bible and also the easiest to forget: faithfulness and integrity is infinitely more valuable than winning.

6. Be hopeful. Hopeful people are joyful and winsome people. We have good reason to be hopeful: Intellectual and moral relativism are not true. They are lifeless and barren. They cannot and will not bear fruit.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is not just “the way.” He is also “the truth,” and allegiance to him bears the fruit of eternal life.

My Thoughts on Aquinas Get Critiqued

Recently Adam Tucker of Southeastern Evangelical Seminary did me the honor of engaging my thoughts on Thomas Aquinas and Natural Law Theory. I thank him for that, as well as for quoting the late Greg Bahnsen in my defense. That's almost the nicest thing anybody's ever done for me.

Because Tucker's article was unfortunately published, I feel some obligation to reply.

At the outset he tackles the "charge" that "there are many interpretations of Aquinas's teachings...and that nearly 1,000 years of thinking about these issues has not settled the matter." Tucker then imagines that my point "is supposed to call into question any particular view of Thomism because, well, there are just so many interpretations of Aquinas." 

Well, no. That isn't the point at all. The point is straightforward and twofold: it signals that my criticisms of Thomism may or may not apply to all versions of it. More importantly, I was speaking at a panel discussion in which one of my interlocutors presented his revisionist version of Thomism (a far more "presuppositional" version, I might add) as "The Classical Natural Law Tradition," and then blithely dismissed any worries about the nature/grace distinction, noetic effects of sin, and so forth, as "embarrassingly misinformed." Since that was designed to "poison the well" of my forthcoming critique, I thought I'd point out that there are plenty of Thomists who would chafe at his revisionist dogmatism. This is all very clear from my remarks. It had nothing whatsoever to do with some kind of shrug-of-the-shoulders relativism about Thomistic interpretation.

Tucker agrees that talking about "intrinsic teleology" or "proper ends" is as unpopular as quoting John 3:16 in our current cultural context because "[o]ur culture has adopted bad philosophical views that have led to our current state of moral relativism and confusion." Then follows this jarring sentence: "Ignoring these erroneous views, however, and jumping straight to God does not help matters."

I don't know anyone who wants to "ignore" these erroneous views, and I'm fairly unsure what "jumping straight to God" means.

The next sentence compounds my confusion: "Most of the time, going straight to God on moral issues improperly grounds the very morality being discussed."

I'm not sure why the focus is suddenly moral issues, since we were just talking about metaphysics and epistemology. Be that as it may, Tucker's sentence literally means that morality is only properly grounded in something other than God. That's so weird a position for a Christian apologist that I assume he must mean something else.

The rest of the paragraph does little to clarify:

"Even if the person with whom we are discussing these matters accepts our appeal to God, he would then be bringing his erroneous views of reality to bear on Christianity. This is precisely what has happened for the last several hundred years, and the current intellectual state of the church is deplorable. If one rejects the ability to know basic things about sensible reality (e.g., the good of an eye is to see well), he has removed any rationally compelling reason for believing in God as well. Thus, the culture (and often times the church) concludes that one must 'presuppose' (i.e., assume) the existence of God, resort to blind faith, or find rest in his own skepticism. I am convinced the presuppositionalist has adopted the fundamental tenants [sic] of the bad philosophy he claims to be combating."

The first half of this paragraph is inscrutable to me (I've never heard the Enlightement described as [precisely!?] a period where people accepted an appeal to God), but his "thus" clarifies a few things. Tucker seems to think that "presuppositionalism" somehow doesn't believe in the ability to know basic things about sensible reality, and it is that kind of skepticism that leads to an embrace of blind fideism. He later claims that I hold the "assumption that man does not directly know sensible reality." And again: "While implicitly denying our ability to know things in themselves, Mattson...."

Here is something that might prove helpful for the reader and, more importantly, for Mr. Tucker: the entire raison d'etre of a presuppositional apologetic is to account for our obvious ability to know things, anything at all, basic or not, about sensible reality.

I honestly wish it gets better, but it doesn't. Tucker writes: "In fact, considering the numerous miracles, appeals to nature, eyewitness testimony, and personal physical appearances, we seem to see some type of empiricism (knowing sensible things) assumed in the pages of Scripture." There is nothing remotely controversial here, and I know of nobody who doesn't believe there is "some type of empiricism" assumed in Scripture. This is just very strange.

Tucker even knows that I believe in our ability to know things! But he thinks this is somehow a grudging admission: "When it comes down to it, Mattson admits that we can actually know things." Like this is an admission against interest, or I don't want it to be true, or something?

He omits my immediately following sentences, which make clear what it is we are even talking about (the entire nature/grace scheme): "I think it makes a difference whether we view this general 'reasonableness' as simply the natural state of affairs (a 'natural law,' perhaps?) or whether we view it as grace. If it is merely the natural order, we can presume upon it--indeed, so much so that we can use it, as Natual Law Theory does, to construct a general, universal epistemology under which to do business with non-believers. But one does not presume upon grace. And grace is what I think it is." This was, of course, the entire point of this section of my remarks, but Tucker seems uninterested in or at least doesn't grasp the import of the epistemic question raised here.

Suffice it to say, I have never "implied" anywhere, at any time in my life (much less in the remarks under discussion), a belief or assumption that human beings do not know things about the sensible world. None of my intellectual mentors, whether Bavinck, Van Til, Bahnsen, or Frame have ever said or implied such a thing. The entire point is one hundred-eighty degrees the opposite. The question has never been whether knowledge is possible; but, rather, how it is possible or justifiable without Christian presuppositions.

I can only suspect that Mr. Tucker's superficial foray into the world of presuppositional apologetics is by way of some unfortunate caricature learned from a very unreliable and/or grossly unsympathetic secondhand source. He certainly did not learn from Greg Bahnsen that human beings do not know things about the sensible world. He might have learned that unbelievers cannot account for or justify their knowledge on non-Christian bases, but that's quite a different claim. One that ought to be taken seriously. Sadly there's certainly no shortage of caricatures, and capable people have answered things like the "fideism" charge again and again and again.

At any rate, Tucker thinks our primary disagreement arises from whether God is what man "foremost knows." On this, I confess he's probably right. With Aquinas, he denies it. And, along with Aquinas, he simply does not even begin to do justice to Paul's seminal discussion in Romans 1:18-32. Paul says no less than five times that human beings know God, primally and inescapably: "Knowledge of God is plain to them;" "God made it plain to them;" "has been clearly seen;" "being understood;" "Although they knew God..." This is not a mere capacity for knowledge; it is actual knowledge.

It may now seem strange that I am emphasizing that human beings primally, naturally, and inescapably know the God they reject, because Tucker then writes: "Mattson lists several Scripture passages to support his view that man cannot naturally know things about God."

Oh dear. Has he forgotten in the space of mere sentences that I am supposed to be someone who thinks, contra Aquinas, that God is what man "foremost knows"? I just don't know what to say, other than to encourage him to learn enough to avoid representing opponents as saying the exact opposite of what they believe. 

Nothing in Mr. Tucker's response leads me to believe he has a firm grasp on that to which he is responding. The empirical evidence (!) points elsewhere.

One last thing. In his conclusion, he asks: "Why do humans exist with the natures they have?"

It's a great question, and I wonder if we can answer it on rational principles without that "jumping straight to God" thing.

Alas, he writes: "The only answer, I am convinced, is because God has created us as a natural kind with our specific human nature."

Well, I'm happy to report that the actual panel discussion was more fruitful and fun.

Doubting Thomas (Yes, Still)

 [I was privileged to participate in a panel discussion with Francis Beckwith on the topic of Thomas Aquinas and Natural Law Theory. We were responding to a series of lectures by J. Budziszewski. My remarks as delivered are below. They are very similar to what I posted here a year ago, with some changes. Enjoy.]

I am so pleased to participate in this conversation today, and would like to thank [....] for so graciously inviting me and Professor Beckwith, whom I greatly admire, for his willingness to participate.

Our topic is Thomas Aquinas; more specifically, the viability of a revitalized Natural Law Theory for Christian public discourse. I should admit at the outset that I am one of those Christian critics of natural law theory about whom Dr. Budziszewski has called today, "embarrassingly misinformed." But I promise I've never let that deter me before.

Let me make clear at the outset that what is in question here is not that reality is ordered by transcendent norms; for me, the question is whether Thomistic Natural Law theory is truly capable of arriving at these norms by way of its characteristic method.

There's no better way to begin than by making the root of my concerns clear. Thomistic Natural Law draws a distinction (to varying degrees of sharpness) between natural knowledge and "supernatural" knowledge, between natural reason and faith, between general truths that may be known to "unaided" reason and special truths that may only be obtained by special revelation.

This is the general contour of Thomistic epistemology, and there has been great debate over just how sharply one should draw these lines. Why the concern? It is best illustrated by a philosopher who himself maximally exploited this dichotomy: Immanuel Kant. Kant famously made his distinction between faith and reason absolute: the "noumenal" realm (that which is outside our experience) is faith's domain; the phenomenal realm (the world of our experience) is reason's sole domain. It should be noted that Kant thought he was doing God a favor--"making room for him" was his phrase; but, as Stanley Fish wryly puts it, he essentially, "kicked God upstairs and out of sight."

The Enlightenment vision of Kant and his successors was to create a public space free of faith; Reason would be the sole arbiter of public truth. Insofar as Natural Law theory is an attempt to argue for transcendent moral norms solely on the basis of natural reason and free from faith claims, it seems content to live, move, and have its being in what I believe to be an artificial construct. I am less than inclined to accept secularism's terms of participation in the public square.

Some Thomists have felt the weight of this. Henri deLubac and the Nouvelle Theologie have produced a more "integrationist" account of Thomas, arguing essentially that "pure nature" is not really a condition that is "unaided" by God's revelation or grace after all. In fact, this more integrated interpretation is what you heard just now from Professor Beckwith, and from Dr. Budziszewski today when he insisted that, for example, without divine grace no one could reason about anything at all, or when he said that Natural Law takes into account the salvation history revealed in Scripture. But I have to say: Dr. Budziszewski's vigorous effort today to paint a singular, cohesive tradition of "classical natural law" genuinely surprised me. Because, with all due respect, that is embarrassingly misinformed. 

Nicholas Wolterstorff, whom nobody would accuse of ignorance, summarizes where things stand in the scholarly world: "To say that there is not a consensus view on Aquinas's understanding of natural law is to understate drastically the depth and scope of controversy on the matter." (Justice: Rights and Wrongs [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008], 39.)

I mention all this because I think it is important to note that there are varying accounts of Thomism, and that after these well-nigh thousand years Natural Law Theory (still) isn't a settled matter. The irony of my disagreement just now with Dr. Budziszewski is that my own sympathies are with him and deLubac; the more integrationist an approach (meaning the less sharp a dichotomy between faith and reason) the better. But I also believe we do even better to rethink the entire construct.

Allow me to briefly delve into some more specific concerns about the deployment of natural law theory.

1. I am skeptical of Natural Law’s alleged advantage.

Here is how it appears to the popular mind: “We cannot resort to theology in matters of public concern because our opponents do not believe in theology.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but our opponents do not believe in nature, either. These are, after all, people who believe everything—even our very biology—is a psychological and socio-cultural construct. One recent scholar has declared that mathematics is a social construct designed by white patriarchy to oppress and marginalize others. Math. Forgive me for pointing this out: talking about an "instrinsic teleology” or "proper ends" that we can rationally discern is every bit as unpopular with our cultured despisers as quoting John 3:16. Teleology is precisely what our culture denies.

So if public discourse requires a priori agreement about fundamentals like God or Nature (an impression Natural Law Theory often gives, at least at the popular level), it strikes me that it is not in the advantageous position it imagines.

2. I am skeptical of a neat separation between general and special revelation, between the truths of reason and the truths of faith.

I find Augustine and Anselm better than Kant: knowledge—all knowledge—is “faith seeking understanding.” Scratch a truth claim deep enough, and you’ll uncover a faith commitment at the bottom. That's because we are dependent creatures who literally have no autonomous, independent place on which to epistemically stand.

General and special revelation should be viewed as an organic unity (not, as Thomas seemed to think, as parallel tracks) and so also the human knower must be viewed as an organic unity. People do not think in terms of two “sets” of propositions, each in a hermetically sealed silo, one called "faith" and the other "reason." Rather, they always come to topics shaped and influenced by everything they know. This is true even of Natural Law proponents: what they mean by their ostensibly "faith-free" references to the natural world is itself shaped by special revelation. In other words, I’m doubtful that “unaided” reason really is unaided. Try as we might to disguise it, I believe everyone's concepts of the True, Good, and Beautiful are underwritten by faith commitments.

And here's my real point: I don’t see why we should be shy or uncomfortable about this, or try to disguise it. In his book, The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse, Steven Smith compellingly shows that none of the bulwarks of our “secular” society (e.g., human dignity, equality, etc.) are arrived at by strict reason—rather, all parties smuggle their ideological faith commitments into the public square by reassuringly telling themselves and everybody else that the arguments are based on strictly “secular” reason, when they are in fact nothing of the sort.

3. I’m skeptical of Natural Law Theory’s assessment of the human epistemic condition.

I think we know what true unaided reason is. It is “futile” and “darkened,” (Rom. 1) “depraved,” “enslaved to the flesh,” “death,” “hostile to God,” “unwilling” and “unable” to submit to him (Rom. 8), and “foolish” and “unspiritual” (1 Cor. 1). None of these characterizations are my own. Rather, they are how the Bible characterizes the fallen human mind. The problem is not so much that people don’t believe in God; it is that they won’t believe in God. It is a mistake to believe that human reasoning capacities are generally amenable to arguments that point in God’s direction.

Now, of course unbelievers know lots of things and deploy their mental resources very successfully. I readily and thankfully admit it! After all, I'm reading this on a near-miraculous device created by Steve Jobs, who, as far as I know, was not on particularly close terms with God. But I think it makes a difference whether we view this general “reasonableness” as simply the natural state of affairs (a “natural law,” perhaps?) or whether we view it as grace. If it is merely the natural order, we can presume upon it—indeed, so much so that we can use it, as Natural Law Theory does, to construct a general, universal epistemology under which to do business with non-believers. But one does not presume upon grace. And grace is what I think it is.

4. I am skeptical of halfway-houses.

Don’t misunderstand me: if a natural law argument persuades someone to, say, change their mind on the morality of abortion, I will rejoice. But I have doubts about an overall approach that appears satisfied with that. It seems to me one thing to not explicitly ground our foundational convictions in the Bible for a particular existential and/or situational reason (e.g., maybe quoting Scripture right now isn’t the best tactic). But it seems an altogether different thing to never talk about God or his Word in public affairs as a matter of principle.

I am not talking about the caricature of the guy who just quotes Bible verses as “conversation stoppers.” I am talking about a willingness to boldly give deep and “thick” biblical and theological descriptions of reality, to allow what we really believe to organically, openly, and unashamedly shape our entire view of Life, the Universe, and Everything. I am quite confident that can be done in conversation-enriching ways. In fact, I think it is when we actually get to the heart of the matter, the antithesis between two deep convictions on the nature of reality and ethics and knowledge, that conversations actually get interesting.

5. This one is a question:

Isn’t it possible that our reluctance to engage in this kind of “thick-description” biblical and theological discourse in public affairs is one of the culprits of our cultural decline?

Why is it so easy for someone—even highly educated, lettered academics—to describe the run-of-the-mill Christian believer as a mindless “bigot”? To instinctively assume there can be no intellectual reasons for convictions brought by faith? Have not we ourselves given this very impression: reason and faith occupy two different spheres?

What if we are to blame? We have been dutifully playing by the Enlightenment's cardinal rule, “Leave God, the Bible, and your faith out of it!” Should it surprise us that we wake up to find Secularism dominating the field? I’m concerned that some versions of the Natural Law renewal--those that emphasize an artificial dichotomy between faith and reason--represent a doubling down on a failed strategy that got us here, rather than a real advance.

Finely Tuned

I'm sitting on my back deck on a beautiful Spring morning, with a cool breeze gently nudging me. The birds are energetic. Having quite a conversation. Or debate? Flirting? Turf war between the robins and finches? I don't know, but they all sound lovely.

Scientists talk about "fine-tuning." You know, how the conditions for life to exist on this planet have to be "just so." Just a couple of miles more distant from the sun and Earth would be a big ice cube. A few miles closer and we'd have a mass of molten lava. It "just so" happens we are perfectly aligned in the cosmos. Astronomers and astrophysicists aren't the only ones to notice this. Biologists see how the tiniest details of life have to be "just so." All the intricate parts of a single cell have to work in tandem. Just a little out of whack, and it just doesn't work at all.

You don't have to be an expert at all to see this fine-tuning. It's obvious, and it's everywhere if you have the eyes to look. Or ears to hear.

My ears are hearing it right now. Alfred Hitchcock once made a movie in which all the birds mysteriously and suddenly decided they didn't like humans. So they attacked them. The results were pretty horrifying. As Hitchcock rightly imagined, we'd be utterly helpless. I propose a different movie. How about if all the birds sounded like fingernails scraping a chalkboard? Or what if they sounded like pigs grunting? Or maybe just an incessant ring, like constant Tinitus in our ears? Or a mechanical sound: scraping, beeping, honking like a horn? Or maybe lets just pretend they sang horribly out of tune.

Stop right now and listen. To the birds. You don't normally do that because you take their song for granted. Listen to the ones singing and chirping right now. Imagine that sound was something horrible. What would life be like?

It wouldn't be "like" anything, because life wouldn't exist. We'd all have long ago gone stark raving mad. It "just so" happens that the background soundtrack to our lives is also finely tuned.

The birds sing the praise of their Creator, and their voices are worthy for the task.

Put Down Your Bible and Listen

For quite some time, my wife has been listening to the Bible. Every night she crawls into bed and turns on David Suchet's wonderful reading of the NIV translation. (Highly recommended.) And let's be really honest: some of it is a chore. The prophets, particularly, have been downers. You probably should time this so that you don't listen to the prophets during the dark winter hours. Night after night of judgments and threatenings can be psychologically difficult.

But she made it through. And finally the New Testament has begun.

And she told me how different it is. Wildly different.

No, I'm not going down the old well-worn path of how allegedly mean and angry the "Old Testament" God is compared to the "New Testament" God. But I am saying there is a difference. And we talked for awhile about what, exactly, that difference is. The one that she's hearing. I think we found it.

She's been listening, night after night, to the messengers of God. Every prophecy, every book, is filled with these phrases: "The word of the LORD came to..." and "This is what the LORD of hosts says..." and "The LORD Almighty declares..."

And then... Jesus arrives.

Jesus almost never says anything like, "This is what the LORD says." He never claims, like the prophets of old, "The LORD of Hosts proclaims to you..." He speaks in direct address: "I say to you..." If you really stop to think about it, the prophets always provide their credentials at the beginning ("The LORD Almighty came to so-and-so"), but Jesus simply talks. And when he's done he says things like, "my Father testifies about me."

Think about that. Not, "I testify about the Father." It's the other way around. Not, "Let me tell you about the Father," but "the Father tells you (testifies) about me." Jesus is central stage. He's not a third party delivering a message from God or pointing or directing you to God. This is nothing, I mean nothing at all, like the prophets.

Listening straight through makes a difference. You get just a glimpse of why those who heard him in the flesh were astounded. The gospels tell us their reaction: "Who ever taught with such authority?" This is the authority. No longer is God sending messengers. No longer is God's speech a third-person address through a mediator. God has entered his own story. He is the lead actor in the play.

It is a thoroughly remarkable change, and one that we miss entirely by not hearing it. We've got chaptered and versed Bibles. We stick to chapters or (when we're busy) verses, but don't bother with the long slog. But for people conditioned to, "This is what the LORD Almighty says," to hear a Rabbi come around saying, "You've heard it said, but I say to you..." and "truly, truly, I say to you" is a radically jarring thing. Just who does this fellow think he is? The third-person has become first-person address.

People often doubt that Jesus claimed to be divine. There's an entire industry of popular books written on that premise. I suggest they put down their versified Bibles and simply listen. His authoritative volume is deafening.

What The Crown Can Teach Donald Trump

I'm nearly through watching Netflix Original's "The Crown." It is deserving of much of the praise lavished on it: beautifully filmed, directed, and acted, even if some of the episodes don't have enough story power to keep from lagging.

But this isn't a review.

If you're unfamiliar with it, the show documents the reign of Queen Elizabeth II (currently the longest-reigning British monarch). Most of the friction in her early reign stems from the clash of tradition and modernity. She and her husband are young and energetic, citizens of the modern world, and yet they inhabit an institution formed and hardened by a millennium of tradition. No, that isn't right. She is the embodiment and custodian of this tradition-hardened institution.

Should she be energetic and free to do as she wishes? After all, she is the Queen, and all her wishes are commands. Instead, she finds the role incredibly stifling. There is a "way things are done." No, she is informed, she cannot choose her own private secretary. There is a time-honored pecking order. Well, that's not exactly true, either. She can choose her own secretary, but she is warned that it would be most "unwise" to do so. She is at something of a loss to navigate the treacherous waters between her own autonomy as the Queen of the Empire and "what is expected."

America is not a monarchy; never has been, and never should be. But America has its unique institutions, and institutions have cultures. They have norms, expectations, ethos, habits, manners, decorum, and a "way of doing things." Institutions are therefore pillars of stability in society. They form a community's skeletal system. The important thing to realize is that, beyond the merest sketch, nobody invents the culture of an institution on the front end. It is not centrally planned out. Rather, institutions form cultural expectations ("the way things are done") through the experience of time. They are therefore not (always) arbitrary whims; they are usually products of... collective wisdom.

Ah, but it is fun to be a radical contrarian! To view all tradition as arbitrary whim and reinvent the institutional wheel according to one's own passions! But the pleasure is fleeting because its result is anarchy: the destruction of common norms and expectations and the disintegration of communal bone structure. Throwing out all the history, tradition, and decorum destabilizes institutions.

Queen Elizabeth understood all this. She made her reign about The Office rather than herself: The Crown, rather than "Elizabeth." I don't think anybody would argue she did not develop her own individuality and personal "stamp" on the institution, but she did it very carefully. She knew (knows) that just because one cannot think of a reason for a certain "way of doing things" doesn't mean there isn't a reason. Tradition is collective wisdom.

Lots of people love the vulgarizing of our political discourse. Seeing President-Elect Donald Trump stand at a podium and call a media outlet a "pile of garbage" and another (much more well-respected), "fake news" is kind of fun, I guess, for those who agree with him. His entire campaign was a radical departure of our institutional norms and expectations, so it isn't really a surprise that actual governance would share that characteristic. It seems that Donald Trump is not going to make this about The Office. It is going to be about Donald Trump. Be careful what you wish for.

I'm just going to humbly offer a warning and leave it here. It has long been the Progressive dream to undermine traditional institutions and culture and our "ways of doing things" (they're all just arbitrary "social constructs," you see). And Donald Trump is a wrecking ball out of their wildest dreams.

If this is the new normal for America, I do not suspect it will end well.

The Scouring of the Shire: In Defense of Untidy Endings

[Scour, v. To clean or brighten the surface (of something) by rubbing it hard, typically with an abrasive or detergent.]

'I shan't call it the end, till we've cleared up the mess,' said Sam gloomily. 'And that'll take a lot of time and work.'

Peter Jackson's cinematic re-telling of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King is known for its multiple endings, and each is pleasant enough. Healing, courtship, weddings, coronation, tributes, celebrations, departures and returns, the message is clear: war is over. There is at last a King in Gondor, and evil is destroyed.

Most visually stunning is the return of the four hobbit heroes to the Shire. Following the dark, brooding color palette of Mordor, the lush green is a sight for sore eyes. Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin find their homeland just as they remembered it. Life goes on in the Shire, full of cheer, pipe-weed, and beer. There is no more conflict. Oh, there is a kind of sadness among the four as nostalgia sets in, along with a kind of regret that their neighbors are quite incapable of knowing the full significance of their exploits. Things will never quite be the same because they themselves are not the same. But all told, Jackson finishes his nearly ten-hour epic by returning to pastoral scenes and the deep, satisfying peace of Sam's final words to Rosie: "Well, I'm back."

Tolkien's version is not nearly so tidy, which can be a let-down to casual readers and an irritant to CGI-loving directors of blockbuster films. Compared to the terror of Helm's Deep or the thrill of Pelennor Fields, the 'Battle of Bywater, 1419' (as it is known to posterity), is a decidedly parochial affair. No orcs, goblins, trolls, Nazgul, or Oliphaunts, just a few Hobbits subduing a gang of ruffians under the command of Captains Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took. The "Scouring of the Shire" (as Tolkien's chapter is called) may not be an expected or convenient ending, but it has the merit of being true.

What am I saying? True? It is fiction, to be sure. But there is Truth here, with a capital "T." Truth that (cinematic run times notwithstanding) should be neither skipped nor changed.

____________________

The travelers trotted on, and as the sun began to sink towards the White Downs far away on the western horizon they came to Bywater by its wide pool; and there they had their first really painful shock. This was Frodo and Sam's own country, and they found out now that they cared about it more than any other place in the world. Many of the houses that they had known were missing. Some seemed to have been burned down. The pleasant row of old hobbit-holes in the bank on the north side of the Pool were deserted, and their little gardens that used to run down bright to the water's edge were rank with weeds. Worse, there was a whole line of the ugly new houses all along Pool Side, where the Hobbiton Road ran close to the bank. An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.

The four heroic hobbits do not return to the Shire of their memories. It is not lush and green. The pipe-weed is all missing (having been sent to Saruman's stores in Isengard), the taverns are closed, and beer is banned. The only thing there is no shortage of is "rules," as new and ever-lengthening signage informs them, and which they promptly tear down in contempt. Old Gaffer Gamgee comically explains how dire is his personal situation: "While you've been trapessing in foreign parts, chasing Black Men up mountains from what my Sam says, though what for he don't make clear, they've been and dug up Bagshot Row and ruined my taters!"

The full reality is not so comical. At their first meeting with a gang of ruffians Frodo says, "Much has happened since you left the South. The Dark Tower has fallen, and there is a King in Gondor." Yet here they stand dumbstruck at the Dark Tower in miniature looming over Bag End: a brick chimney belching black smoke. Here someone called "Chief" lords it over the Shire, not the one enthroned in Minas Tirith.

'This is worse than Mordor!' said Sam. 'Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was all ruined.'

'Yes, this is Mordor,' said Frodo. 'Just one of its works.'

This is not the sentimental and satisfying return of the cinematic version. Why is Tolkien dragging this out? Do we really need another battle? Is this one of those Victor Hugo chapters, the ones that remind you he's being paid by the word? Daniel Defoe, inventor of the English novel, frankly botched the ending of his otherwise brilliant Robinson Crusoe by throwing in one last, completely superfluous adventure. He just couldn't help himself, as further evidenced by his literarily disastrous sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. As the saying goes, quit while you're ahead. Is Tolkien falling for Dafoe's brand of self-indulgence here?

Hardly. He knows the Truth too well. Breaking the power of Mordor does not suddenly (as Peter Jackson would have it) transform the world into a Thomas Kincade painting. In the official annals of Middle Earth found in Appendix B of the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien records this remarkable line:

"November 3 (3019, Shire Reckoning 1419). Battle of Bywater, and Passing of Saruman. End of the War of the Ring."

Think of that. The destruction of the Ring and the downfall of Sauron was not the end of the "War of the Ring?" Not to Tolkien's way of thinking. The wounds must heal (and forever leave scars, as Frodo would find) and the destruction must be repaired. The "works of Mordor," to use Frodo's phrase, must be dealt with, along with the servants of Mordor; in the immediate case, that means Saruman.

Tolkien calls it "scouring." It is an unfolding process, implicit in Sam's wonderful way of putting it in his question to Gandalf: "Is everything sad going to come untrue?" Sadness must be made untrue, and that is not done by just wishing it or emoting, as Merry chidingly reminds Frodo: "'But if there are many of these ruffians,' said Merry, 'it will certainly mean fighting. You won't rescue Lotho, or the Shire, just by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo.'" Scouring is needed. Detergent must be applied, even into hard-to-reach places like the Shire. There may be King in faraway Gondor, but his rule must be felt.

[Pippin] cast back his cloak, flashed out his sword, and the silver and sable of Gondor gleamed on him as he rode forward. 'I am a messenger of the King,' he said. 'You are speaking to the King's friend, and one of the most renowned in all the lands of the West. You are a ruffian and fool. Down on your knees in the road and ask pardon, or I will set this troll's bane in you!'

____________________

Tolkien knew this from personal experience, of course, having served in the dreary and miserable trenches of World War One. That explains his hatred of barren wastelands (Mordor), heavy machinery (Isengard), and black smoke. But I think it's more than the story of his experience. Behind it lies the bigger story, the one he famously called the "true myth": the grand narrative of creation and redemption culminating in Jesus of Nazareth.

It is no accident that the Fellowship's journey from Rivendell begins on Christmas Day, the dawn of December 25th. Neither is it incidental that when Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee at long last struggle up the slopes of Mount Doom to destroy Sauron by way of the One Ring, it is March 25th, the traditional ecclesiastical date of Good Friday.

Tolkien's story is framed by the liturgical calendar, and so the Shire's scouring is not superfluous. After all, in the "true myth," Easter victory did not instantly transform the world. The enthronement of the King of kings and Lord of lords had to be announced by his messengers to those kings and lords in distant places, "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

"The King's Messengers will ride up the Greenway now, not bullies from Isengard." --Frodo Baggins

____________________

The Scouring of the Shire is one of my favorite chapters. In an obvious sense, it is a simple coming of age story. The meek and terrified hobbits, now fully matured and steeled by their adventures, return home and exercise wisdom and leadership without the direct aid of Gandalf the White or Aragorn, son of Arathorn. It is also the story of Saruman's end; fittingly, by the vengeful blade of his pitiful, abused servant Wormtongue. Black is black, evil is evil, and spreads the same tyranny, black smoke, and misery wherever it goes, even into the pastures and woodlands of the Shire.

But most of all it is a reminder that Mordor has stained everything. Nothing is exempt, not even our most cherished places. "It comes home to you," Sam remarks, "because it is home." Evil corrupted even the most idyllic corner of Middle Earth. The victory is won, but we "shan't call it the end till we've cleared up the mess." The world must be scoured, cleaned, mended, and healed. As great as were the crumbling of Barad-dur, the sacking of Isengard by the Ents, the shriek of the Witch-King of Arnor under the blade of Eowyn of Rohan, there remains the small but no less important matter of Bagshot Row and Old Gaffer's ruined taters.

Tolkien got it right. Christmas and Easter together do not spell "the end." There is much work to do. Our own homes, relationships, vocations, thoughts, desires, inclinations, hearts must be scoured and healed by the good news of a new King. Gandalf says, "The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so shall the rightful king be known.

"Hark!" The herald angels sing: Glory to the newborn King!"

Post-Election Thoughts

Along with the entire watching world, I was astounded at the results of the U.S. Presidential election. Just astounded. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that Donald Trump could be elected President of the United States. From the general reaction around the world, it seems I was not alone.

So, congratulations to him. And his campaign staff.

Some people seem to want "apologies" from people like me (and, in a few cases, me in particular). This takes the form of wanting admissions of wrong, invitations to "eat crow," and that sort of thing. So, here goes: Sure. Absolutely. I was wrong when I said, variously, that Donald Trump would get crushed in a general election or that he was the only Republican candidate who would lose to Hillary Clinton. I will take all the abuse the Trumpers want to dump on me in that regard. Gladly. Gloat away.

Now, I was not saying what I was saying because I am just hard-headed and oblivious to facts. Just last week on our podcast I said very clearly the race had tightened and he had a fighting chance. I still did not believe the electoral map favored him, but he was making it tight. Now we know that, as of Election Day, Donald Trump's own campaign polling had him 30 Electoral College votes shy of winning. Simply put, if I was wrong about his electoral chances, every single pundit in the world outside of rabid sycophants like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter were wrong about his chances. So apologizing for being wrong about this is no singular burden.

Here's something, though. Some Trumpers seem to mean by "apology" an admission that I was wrong about more than Donald Trump's election chances. No dice, there. On Monday morning, Donald Trump was intellectually, morally, and temperamentally unfit for the office of President. On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was intellectually, morally, and temperamentally unfit for the office of President. If people want me to apologize for saying that Donald Trump is a fool (in the biblical sense), he has to prove me wrong first, given that he spent his first 70 years of life proving me right. Winning an election doesn't make somebody fit for the office; it simply proves that given the right circumstances, even fools can win elections.

Still others seemed to expect that #NeverTrump people like me would be disappointed by the results. This blows my mind. In know in certain fever swamps, people think #NeverTrumpers secretly wanted Hillary Clinton to be President. That is, well, fevered. I'll put it this way: in a year that promised zero good outcomes, we probably got the best possible outcome, short of Evan McMullin giving the House of Representatives the option of doing the right thing. My opposition to Trump, from Day One, was to a very large extent based on the desire to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. I mean, you could look it up. Far from being disappointed, I am absolutely elated that Hillary Clinton will now forever be known as "private citizen." Relying on Donald Trump to get that job done has a lot of downsides, which we'll discuss, but make no mistake: I'm over the moon that the Clintons may now retire from public "service," or whatever you call leveraging political access for piles of cold, hard cash.

I must also say I'm enjoying the admittedly self-indulgent vanity of watching the complete freakish meltdown of the entire left-leaning establishment in this country. Watching people on the "right side of History" struggle for words when history smacks them upside the head is a pretty satisfying conclusion to a pretty horrible year.

What Just Happened?
Human beings want easy explanations for complex events. And so I could offer some: Hillary Clinton was just a dismal candidate (and, oh, she was!); the GOP is now dominated by xenophobic nationalists; evangelicals sold their souls in large numbers, an outbreak of anti-establishmentarianism, that sort of thing.

But there isn't just "one" explanation. There are a myriad of stories, each insufficient on its own, that together coalesced into this outcome. There are elements of truth to all these "simple" explanations. Is it true that Donald Trump got a lot of support from racists and blood-and-soil nationalists? Yes. He attracted that kind of support with his campaign rhetoric. But is that sufficient to explain his victory? Not at all.

What just happened is a perfect political storm involving a lot of overlapping constituencies and themes. The white supremacist voted for Donald Trump, and the evangelical soccer mom voted for Donald Trump. Apart from both being Homo sapien (I guess), the box they checked on Tuesday is the only thing they have in common. This election will be much more difficult to sort out what it all "means." In years past, exit polling would break down a voting bloc's priorities and concerns, and one could glean what the electorate as a whole was trying to accomplish by voting as they did. That is, what the "mandate" is. This year polls are absolutely worthless, and it seems obvious that Trump's voters did as they did for wildly different reasons.

The difficulty of sorting this out is of particular concern because the Republican Party needs to figure out just how big an internal civil war they are having between movement conservatives and the "alt-Right" populist crowd. The trouble is, it's going to be difficult to tell. The alt-Right did not get Donald Trump elected. Millions of other people did that, for reasons having nothing to do with xenophobia or bigotry. But the alt-Right will claim they got Donald Trump elected, and thus a mandate for their cause. Frankly, to a large degree it will be up to Donald Trump to sort this out. Which sort of scares me.

Here are some major elements of what I think happened. In large part we saw a delayed reaction to the Obama era that many of us expected in 2012. The country is finally fed up with skyrocketing health care premiums (and being told it's working just fine, and that it's for "the greater good"); the smug condescension of progressive elites telling them what pronouns they can use and that boys can use girl's restrooms; being treated as bigots and homophobes and uneducated, unsophisticated bumpkins.

Charles Krauthammer once said that politics in America is played between the 40-yard lines. The Democrats under Barack Obama have been playing for the 20 and the 10, not just in terms of public policy, but culturally. The nation is full of bitter people "clinging to their guns and their religion," remember? If those people weren't bitter before (and they weren't), they were on Tuesday. All of which is to say, I'm not convinced that most people were primarily interested in electing Donald Trump. They were interested in clobbering the ruling class of the last eight years. This can be seen in the fact that in many battleground states, Republican Senate candidates outperformed Donald Trump. The down-ballot races were helping him, not the other way around.

An important element of this mix, of course, is the plight of the white working class. Much has been made of this woefully ignored portion of the electorate, what Charles Murray called "Fishtown" in his insightful book, Coming Apart. The nation as a whole rejected the Obama era, but Fishtown delivered the rust belt for Donald Trump. Pennsylvania? Ohio? Michigan? Wisconsin? An amazing run.

Let's put a dash of evangelicals into the dish. What were they up to? Sure, some of them were wild cheerleaders of Donald Trump, but it is actually ridiculous to suggest that most of them were. Many years ago Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson wrote a book entitled, Blinded By Might. Its thesis was that the Religious Right loved political power more than they loved Jesus. This year, it was true with respect to a lot of so-called "leaders" (the early adopters, "God's man for America" crowd). But the average, everyday, run-of-the-mill evangelical was not blinded by might; they were blinded by fright. The political left is oblivious to how Christians viewed Hillary Clinton as an existential threat to their freedoms. The only vehicle left to Christians was an unrepentant adulterer and braggart named Donald J. Trump. Stranger things have, actually, never happened.

So here's the recipe so far: a natural course correction in the form of a delayed reaction to the Obama era (and, since Obama played for the 20-yard line, the swing back promises to be equally drastic); the white working class finally exerting electoral muscle; evangelicals sufficiently terrified of Hillary Clinton. The left is shrieking hysterically about racism and xenophobia and hatred for one simple reason: they define racism and xenophobia and hatred as any deviation from their vision for the country. It's comforting for these snowflakes huddled in their safe spaces, but boy, talk about cheap and simplistic explanations.

A motley political coalition emerged on Tuesday. The question is: what in the world is Donald Trump going to do now?

What Is Donald Trump Going To Do?
The short answer:
Nobody has the foggiest notion.

The longer answer:
Nobody has the foggiest notion. No, seriously. Donald J. Trump is exactly what Barack Obama was in 2008: a giant projection screen for people to lay their hopes and dreams on. There are people expecting a mass rounding up of Mexicans to send them back over the border. Blue-collar workers are expecting the manufacturing plant to open up next Spring. Millions of people are now expecting America to "be great" again, each with wildly different expectations of what "great" means. Who knows what "great" means?

I do know there are going to be a lot of really disappointed people. Like Ann Coulter when 11 million people don't get deported.

Donald Trump has caught the tiger by the tail. He now IS the "establishment." Here's what I'm hoping. Not expecting. Hoping.

Now that the ego has been satisfied to the brim (I know: that's a pretty wild hope), he needs to put the adults in charge in every aspect of the administration. It's very ironic that after all of this bluster, he is completely at the mercy of the "establishment," i.e., people who actually know things about government.

Leave the legislative agenda directly in the hands of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Sign whatever those gentlemen put on his desk. This will drive the alt-Right people crazy, but contrary to their fevered imaginations, very good men are in charge of the House and Senate.

On economic policy, put Larry Kudlow in charge and let him pick the entire team. I mean, Larry deserves a lot of love from Donald, doesn't he?

On judicial appointments, obtain a list of jurists from, oh, say, the Heritage Foundation and use it. ONLY it. I mean, he actually promised that part.

The same with Foggy Bottom, Langley, and the Pentagon. Put adults in charge. And this is very important: Donald Trump needs to not be the impetuous, vindictive child he's so eagerly tried to be. This is not a time for settling scores or blacklisting good people because they "didn't say nice things about me." This is serious business that requires serious people. Regardless of whether they supported or said nice things about Donald Trump.

We're at that moment where, in movies about con-men, the protagonist is actually put on the spot to perform the duties he's bragged he can do. Think DiCaprio in Catch Me if You Can, when suddenly he's got to come up with a medical diagnosis while pretending to be a doctor. Trump is, as Marco Rubio once accurately called him, a con-man. He's pretended to be a great statesman capable of "alone" making America great again. I think he can actually pull this off if his sole role is to delegate the job to able and competent men and women, while continuing to pretend (as his ego will demand) that it is he making all the brilliant moves.

I know I'm calling for Donald Trump to be a figurehead leader, an empty suit. I happen to believe that's what he is, so let's play to his strengths. (You can see that I'm obviously not looking for a job in the Trump Administration.)

If Donald Trump doesn't do this, if instead he governs as wildly and erratically as he has campaigned, then the 2018 midterms will be a bloodbath and he'll lose the House and Senate. Then he'd have a very boring job, and he'd be longing to star in another season of The Apprentice.

For the sake of the country, and for his own sake, Donald J. Trump suddenly needs to grow up. I hope and pray he does.

Kevin Pariseau, Where Are You?

Last night I finally finished listening to the Audible version of Herman Wouk's classic, War and Remembrance.

This was my third time through the two-volume series (beginning with The Winds of War), but my first listening experience. I began the saga early in 2016, and mainly listened while traveling: on airplanes, trains, and automobiles. It was 102 hours of my life unbelievably well-spent (transatlantic travel helps). What can I say, other than this is easily one of my very favorite works of fiction? But it isn't really fiction, is it? Wouk has managed to plug his characters into living, breathing history; the times, places, characters, and events all happened precisely as he narrates them. When the time comes for my girls to learn about the world catastrophe of World War II, I am not exaggerating when I say that no other curriculum is necessary.

Upon completion, I spent a bit of time trying to find contact information for the man who so expertly brought it all to life: Kevin Pariseau, the reader. I couldn't find anything, other than he is a stage actor still working and doing voice-work on the side. I wanted to write him a letter of thanks, so I guess I'll just blog it.

Kevin, sometimes I can tell when an audiobook reader is just doing it because it's a job. Puts food on the table. I get it. In this case, I cannot imagine the work that went into reading aloud for a finished product of 102 hours. You must have really wanted to do this. And it shows. Your pacing is perfect; no rushing to get the thing done. There are a multitude of characters speaking plain American English, yet somehow you manage a different tone and inflection for each one, lovingly maintaining it with incredible consistency. I know who is speaking without you telling me. And that's just the Henry family. Your British accents are diverse and perfect; the German and Russian (in original form as well as accents), superb. And that's not to mention your singing from time to time, especially Udan's haunting Yiddish dirge in Theresienstadt: chills. And tears.

Kevin, I've long-since written Mr. Wouk to express my thanks for his marvelous historical testament. But now I thank you. Thank you for your sheer excellence. What an accomplishment! Your recordings will remain a treasure in my household, for we will always seek that for which Mr. Wouk wrote the volumes:

Remembrance.

You have helped me to remember. Thank you.