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  • When a Little Darwinian Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

    Every now and then an article on a supposedly “obscure” subject leaps at you.  One of those was “Children Who Disappeared in Britain” by Deborah Cohen of Northwestern University.  It chronicles the history of the Normansfield Training Institution near London, from its opening to its ignominious end in 1997.  It’s significant because it follows the changes in attitudes towards mentally challenged people both by Normansfield’s management and society in general.

    It’s start was a bright one:

    Normansfield opened in 1868, the brainchild of Dr. John Langdon Down and his wife Mary, ardent liberals and devout evangelicals. John Langdon Down identified the condition he called “Mongolian idiocy,” today known as Down syndrome. His promise — “to open out fresh realms of happiness for a class who have the strongest claims on our sympathy” — soon brought trainloads of worried parents to Normansfield’s iron gates…Pupils who came to Normansfield unable to say more than a few words had learned to multiply 17 by 24, sing hymns, and decline Latin nouns. Imposing from the outside, light and airy in its interior, Normansfield called to mind a well-funded private school, not a hospital. According to one reporter, Normansfield was a place where “idiots had been found to have a future.”

    Unfortunately things went downhill for the patients, and that slide started with Down’s own son:

    John Langdon Down’s son, Reginald, who succeeded to the directorship of Normansfield upon his father’s death at age 67 in 1896, emblemized this new view. A prominent member of Britain’s Eugenics Society, Reginald became one of Britain’s leading advocates for the sterilization of the mentally unfit. More than simply a man of his time, he was also a more pessimistic and aloof personality than his genial parents. The devotion to Christianity and liberalism that motivated the elder Langdon Downs was replaced in Reginald by a commitment to the medical profession and a passion for Oriental porcelain, pottery and furniture.

    Reginald’s pessimism about Normansfield’s patients was increasingly widely shared. The majority of witnesses who testified before the 1907 Parliamentary Committee on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded agreed not just that theproblem of mental deficiency was passed down through the generations but that it was on the rise. The 1913 Mental Deficiency Act gave the authorities unprecedented powers to detain and segregate the weak in intellect; they, alone among all segments of the community, could be deprived of individual liberties that — it was argued — had never rightfully been theirs to enjoy.

    First: this is a good argument against the creeping “hereditary aristocracy” practice that’s become fashionable in Evangelical circles.  The movement that trumpets that “God has no grandchildren” should think twice before reflexively handing the leadership based on family.

    But returning to the main point, what changed other than generations at Normansfield? What changed was the diffusion of Darwininan ideas of natural selection in society, and with them the eugenics movement.  With that hope for improvement among Normansfield’s patients faded and the simple removal of mentally challenged people into dreary institutions where they could be hidden and prevented from reproducing became the norm.

    Since that time we’ve experienced many changes.  The eugenics movement was discredited by its efficient implementation in Nazi Germany, although we’ve seen a back-door revival of this through selective abortions and now genetic engineering.  In the 1960’s and 1970’s the sorry state of such institutions led to the usual response of the time: throw the baby out with the bath water, in this case by emptying the institutions. The result is that our prisons are full of those who would have been more appropriately institutionalised in an earlier era, and non-professional caregivers struggle with their charges.

    Today, of course, evolution is presented as a scientific religion, with whatever extrapolations its followers want to take out of it as part of the package.  But implementation of such a creed has had ugly consequences in the past, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t happen again.

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  • The Core Issue Isn't Gun Control, But Government Distrust

    That’s Scott Rasmussen’s idea, and he asks a lot of nosey questions:

    If people trusted the government, there would be no reason to be concerned about background checks, but only one-in-five voters believe the government currently has the consent of the governed.

    Half the nation views the federal government as a threat to individual liberties rather than a protector of those rights. Sixty-five percent (65%) recognize that the purpose of Second Amendment gun control rights is protection against tyranny, and 44% believe it’s likely the government will try to confiscate all privately owned guns over the next generation.

    This helps explain why the legislation is struggling in Congress. People like the idea of background checks but don’t think they’ll make much difference. They’re also suspicious about the motives of those in government.

    In the end, those who would like to see stronger federal restrictions on gun ownership should start by supporting reforms that will enable the government to re-earn the trust of the American people.

    I don’t ask nosey questions for a living like Scott Rasmussen, but that was my point in my New Year’s piece on gun control:

    What we really need first is a government we can trust, and as long as the Boomers are in charge, that isn’t going to happen.

  • Clement of Alexandria on Knowlege and Reason

    From the Stromata (Miscellanies) II, 4:

    Should one say that Knowledge is founded on demonstration by a process of reasoning, let him hear that first principles are incapable of demonstration; for they are known neither by art nor sagacity. For the latter is conversant about objects that are susceptible of change, while the former is practical solely, and not theoretical. Hence it is thought that the first cause of the universe can be apprehended by faith alone. For all knowledge is capable of being taught; and what is capable of being taught is founded on what is known before.

    One reason Patristic studies are fruitful is that the Fathers met many of the same philosophical objections to Christianity (to theism in general, in many cases) that we do today.  We, like geese waking up in a new world every morning (well, that’s what my mother used to say) think that the assaults are new, but they are not.  They were especially important to those who lived in Alexandria, such as Clement and Origen, where philosophy was deeply rooted.  It’s not an accident that the first full-scale defence of Christianity was Origen’s Contra Celsum.

    In Clement’s case here he is defending against an idea that we hear from atheists today: that they, uniquely it seems, consider things from pure reason while everyone else do not.  Clement’s comeback is that the first principles are unknowable by reason or investigation.  I would put it differently: I think that both sides are using reason but differing premises.  To take the atheists as correct is not as much to say that their logic or reasoning is superior but that their premises are correct.  Although I agree with Clement that many of the first premises are unknowable, a more immediate problem is that the atheists’ philosophical extrapolations from the science are faulty.  One need only consider the multiple extrapolations from evolution–something that has bedevilled the theory from Darwin onward–to see that this is so.

    On a lighter note, we can see Clement’s own logic on the subject of earrings.   Although my Pentecostal bretheren will wince at the memory of legalism, we have certainly seen this come to pass:

    The Word prohibits us from doing violence to nature by boring the lobes of the ears. For why not the nose too? (The Instructor, III, 11)

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  • The Bad Taste of Princeton Alumna Susan Patton

    Was to state the obvious:

    Her betrayal consists of being gauche enough to acknowledge publicly a truth that everyone who’s come up through Ivy League culture knows intuitively — that elite universities are about connecting more than learning, that the social world matters far more than the classroom to undergraduates, and that rather than an escalator elevating the best and brightest from every walk of life, the meritocracy as we know it mostly works to perpetuate the existing upper class.

    Ross Douthat, IMHO, nails it on the dynamic behind an Ivy League education, and I commend the article.  And, of course, this is the United States, where the quickest way to make people mad is to state the obvious.

    In good élite fashion, however, Ms. Patton couched her advice to marry while still at Princeton in terms of finding someone of the same intellectual calibre as you are.  When I read this, the first thing that popped into my mind was this: if one’s central objective is to find a brainy spouse, one shouldn’t head to Harvard or Yale but to Beijing University, hopefully armed with Mandarin fluency.

    But then again, as this Palm Beacher well knows, there are some things that just aren’t said in polite company.

  • They Used to Know Christians By Their Love. But Now…

    …even the Federal government boots the likes of Michael Pfleger off the program:

    Michael Pfleger, the controversial Catholic priest who made racial remarks about Hillary Clinton and defended Louis Farrakhan, has been removed as a keynote speaker at a diversity day event sponsored by a federal government agency.

    A spokesperson for the Broadcasting Board of Governors told Fox News that Pfleger’s office has been notified that his invitation to address the group has been rescinded.

    “This is an event that is meant to celebrate inclusiveness and diversity,” spokesperson Lynne Weil told Fox News. “It was deemed by our senior management that it was not appropriate to have him as a speaker.”

    Pfleger is one of a extended tradition of left-wing Chicago activist clerics.  Most people think of Jeremiah Wright, but it goes back a lot longer than that.  On our music pages two from the 1960’s are represented: the Episcopalian Ian Williams and the Catholic Peter Scholtes, who is best known for They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.

    The fact that the “religious left” had its place in the “Jesus Music” and movement of the era is something that’s easy to forget with subsequent events and the absolute polarisation of our society.  Ultimately any political or social scheme which is driven by identity politics the way ours is will degenerate into bigotry and hatred.  The fact that an administration run by a Chicago community organiser saw fit to boot someone who should have been a hero to it shows that occasionally even the left has its limits.

    Christians should be known by their love.  Although I’ve discussed the importance of doctrinal and theological integrity before, losing ourselves in the hatred of others is another sign that some of us have wandered from the fold.

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  • Some Thoughts on Same Sex Civil Marriage–from 2004

    I’ve taken something of a “Lenten Break” since Ash Wednesday.  I find it more and more frustrating to opine on social and political matters to either a)liberals, who like my old cat only hear the sound of their own voice, or b)conservatives, who can’t get themselves to think outside the box at a time when their survival depends upon it.  Most of this past Lent I’ve spent music blogging, an activity which has gratified both me and many of the artists represented, and a blessing to people around the world. (2012, however, was a rough year in the field).

    Unfortunately events move on.  I surfaced twice, once about the new Pope, and the other time about Tory Baucum and his ill-considered strategy vis-à-vis the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.  The latter has ended well for the time being, which is a relief.

    More recently, of course, we have SCOTUS hearing two cases on same-sex civil marriage during Holy Week. The timing was certainly in bad taste, but get used to it: there’s more to come.  Same sex civil marriage has become the “civil rights” campaign of the hour.  From our elites’ standpoint, it makes sense.  First, the LGBT leadership has been the vanguard of the American left, with its “take no prisoners” method.  Second, our elites can fancy themselves heroes by championing “marriage equality” which costs them nothing.  If they were to focus on economic equality, it would cost them a lot, because they would have to give up the benefits of the economic inequality (and the centralisation of wealth and power) that proceed afoot in our country and of which they are the chief beneficiaries, rhetoric notwithstanding.

    Many of the responses are predictable.  What’s gratifying to me personally is the more pundits on the right are calling for the abolition of civil marriage.  I must confess that I was forced to “fish or cut bait” on this idea by a gay activist who launched what was IMHO cyberbullying on this blog almost seven years ago.  What’s amazed me is that no one on the right has really challenged me on this position.

    At this point getting civil marriage out of our legal code is going to be a long process.  If we look at the time, money and chutzpah that has gone into getting same-sex civil marriage this far–and be assured that it will make it sooner or later–we can see how long it would take to root it out altogether.

    In the meanwhile churches and people who profess and call themselves Christians are going to need a game plan to protect themselves from the predictable onslaught that will follow.  Back in 2004, before this site became a blog, I wrote a piece entitled “Gay Marriage? What Marriage”? which looked at the alternatives for Christians and churches in response to the legalisation of same-sex civil marriage.  My suggestions at the time were as follows:

    1. Christian churches could revert to their pre-Constantinian position and discourage service in the military, as holiness and Pentecostal churches did during the early part of the last century. The Church of God, for instance, waited until V-J day in 1945 to adopt a friendlier position on military service by its members.
    2. They could also opt out of opposition to illegal immigration, figuring that those which jump the fence or swim across the river are fit members for their church (which they are in many cases.)
    3. Anyone who works for or is economically dependent upon a foreign corporation–especially if it’s state owned–is an agent of a foreign government, albeit legally.
    4. Christian churches could finally expect their members to either home school their children or send them to a Christian school, which would spare them both state indoctrination and mediocre education.
    5. Christians would have to interpret passages such as Roman 13 in the context they were originally written in–a dictatorial state whose actions they had no input in and the obedience of whose laws is done solely as a Christian witness, not as a civic obligation.
    6. With a little organisation, Christian churches could even enable their members to opt out of civil marriage altogether, divorcing themselves from an institution that first came from God Himself but has been nationalised to suit the needs of the state, and putting it back in the hands of Him who joined the first man and woman in the Garden.

    When your country doesn’t want you any more, you do what you have to do.

  • Good Friday and Easter Reflections

    With the central event of the Christian calendar coming up, I’d like to link to some of my past pieces for the occasion.  If you’re looking for something different for this, I can recommend the following:

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  • Pax Quartet: Merveilles

    SM 30 423 (1970?)

    This French contribution to the “Jesus Music” era is different in many ways.  Given its reference to the liturgy on the back cover, it’s probably Roman Catholic in at least its target audience.  As opposed to the “garage band” origin and feel of much of the work of the era, or the cavernous acoustics of traditional churches, this album is very professionally orchestrated and arranged in a good 1960’s French pop style.  Finally it actually has the same songs on the back and front of the album: the front with lyrics, the back strictly instrumental.  In a country where there isn’t a Christian bookstore selling tracks on every corner, that’s a good way of overcoming churches or parishes lacking musical talent.

    It’s an album that grows on you; I find myself putting it on more often than I care to admit.

    The songs:

    • Lumière et Paix
    • Donne-Moi La Main
    • Tu Vois Ma Solitude
    • Merveilles

    Instrumental Versions:

    • Lumière et Paix
    • Donne-Moi La Main
    • Tu Vois Ma Solitude
    • Merveilles

    More Music

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  • Inri Ezel: Aunque La Tierra Tiemble Debemos De Cantar

    Roka LP-7316 (1973)

    If the previous Puerto Rican album was a conservative throwback for its day, this one is anything but: it’s a hard-driving rocker, some of which isn’t particularly Hispanic in flavour.  And it varies in style too, from very fast pieces to very slow ones.  If the goal was to reach into the heads of all kinds of rock fans, it succeeds very well.  Those of you with “Mi Orgullo” stickers on your car may want to turn this one up going down the street (local ordinances permitting), it’s something to be proud of.

    The songs:

    1. Jesus el Nazareno Mi Dios
    2. Como Estas Picador
    3. Dios Es Spiritu
    4. Ven a Jesus
    5. Con Cristo Voy
    6. Dios es Nuestro Amparo
    7. Cristo te ama a ta
    8. Padre Nuestro
    9. La Corona de la Vida
    10. Solo Dios
    11. Gracias Papa

    More Music

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  • Ecos Celestiales: Escuchame Señor

    EC-101 (1971)

    For a departure from the recent postings, this one and the next feature albums from Puerto Rico.  The recent election of a Latin American Pope has put the spotlight on this largely Roman Catholic world, but Latin America also has a strong Evangelical and Pentecostal presence, one that is changing both Latin America and the non-Catholic world at the same time.  This didn’t happen all at once, and these albums are a fun testament to that.

    Although the date on the album puts it in the early 1970’s, the style is a throwback even for that date, to the early or mid-1960’s.  Nevertheless, this album is good “Jesus Music” era stuff in that it’s simple and authentic, and its power lies in both.  In an era when too much of our Christian music, to say nothing of our praise and worship, smacks too much of a commercial production, this is a breath of fresh air.

    The songs:

    1. Escuchame Señor
    2. Haz Como Zaqueo
    3. Cristo Perdona
    4. Amigo Eterno
    5. Ahora Tenemos A Cristo
    6. Cristo Te Dara La Felicidad
    7. Atrevete A Ser Libre
    8. Cristo Ven A Mi
    9. Gloria Al Salvador
    10. Soy De Cristo

    More Music

    ecos2bcelestiales2bback

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