The Dearth / Death of Discernment

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

Hosea 4:6

 

All this reveals a disastrous failure of evangelical discernment. It is hard not to conclude that theological discernment is now a lost art among American evangelicals — and this loss can only lead to theological catastrophe. . . The popularity of this book [The Shack] among evangelicals can only be explained by a lack of basic theological knowledge among us — a failure even to understand the Gospel of Christ. The tragedy that evangelicals have lost the art of biblical discernment must be traced to a disastrous loss of biblical knowledge. Discernment cannot survive without doctrine.[1]

 

When I finally get around to publishing my screed as to why I repudiate Evangelicalism, the Christianity Today conglomerate of magazines will be enumerated among my Letterman Top Ten List. I peruse Christianity Today, not with any great expectation of learning any significant theological or pastoral insight. Rather, perusal of “evangelicalism’s flagship magazine”[2] is mandated by the need to keep tabs on the current state of degeneracy of the American church; the historical heartland of the Evangelical movement.

Most of the articles are of the feely-goody supercilious type; often self-adorning paeans to the Bride, which invariably makes her open to flattery and whoredom. Apparently, it is “the local church [which] is the hope of the world.”[3] And here I was under the delusion that it was the Christ.

So, being the ever theologue, I was intrigued by what appears to be a more serious piece, namely “Ten Reasons Why Theology Matters” by David W. Congdon and W. Travis McMaken. Before continuing with this rant, I would seriously invite the reader to peruse that article. I would further invite the reader to scribble a 100 word (or less) impression of the piece as a thought experiment.

.

.

.

.

.

. . .  fingers tapping desk . . .

.

.

.

.

.

Porky Pig for President

Donald Trump will probably lose the election. But he is a final warning. Unless political elites of both the left and the right become more humble, unless they once again ask themselves how their agendas will play in Peoria, the next rough beast might slouch over the corpse of the republic.[1]

I am in general accord with our John Ibbitson concerning the meaning of Donald Trump. (Indeed, I have pretty much said the same in prior blog posts – re: August 24, 2015.)

But Trump himself is not the actual threat. He is but a Storm Trooper of political demagogues to come; a barometer to would-be tyrants of the venality and imbecility at the heart of American politics; a harbinger of the effectual end of free civic society, except for its forms, and [the effectual end of] individual liberty, rule of law and peace.

But unlike John Ibbitson and other members of the cosmopolitan media; I do not consider his opponent, de facto criminal and American Marie Antoinette wannabe (re: “irredeemable . . . basket of deplorables”) to be any less the embodiment of the last generation of the American Republic.

So for those Bernie Bros of the Progressive Left seething at the thought of electing the very symbol of corporate-bought, self-serving venality and corruption in Lady MacBeth Clinton, or those Evangelicals who are appalled at the nose pinching Sophie’s Choice between the lesser of two weevils; the question becomes, “what to do, what to do?”

One could vote for third candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein. However, as both belong to either edge of the political continuum, such would not serve the interests or values of the muddled middle. Furthermore, a vote for either would not sufficiently register the disgust and anger at the current state of political affairs.

Taking a trip to the local polling station in order to register a spoiled ballot is unlikely to sufficiently inspire the live-in-their-parents-basement crowd to momentarily depart from their video porn and games.

So taking a cue from our Québécois folk from a couple of generations back, from whence arose the Rhinoceros Party out of their poutine forests, and which garnered a not inconsequential support in the 1980 Canadian election, the American disaffected might take advantage of that unique feature of their politics; the presidential write-in.

But which figure would rally the democratic troops from all corners of the political spectrum in one concord of mass disgust?

James Buchanan, considered the worst president in the history of the United States, whose machinations (re: Dredd Scott) quickened the onset of the American Civil War, seems a suitable stamp of ironic preference. That or Tamelane, Ghenghis Khan, or Ivan the Terrible. However, such would require history and/or civics literacy, to which modern generations of Americans are not particularly adept.

Perhaps, Mister (Fred) Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, whose simple-minded homilies could make even the most cynical secularist liberal weep. But that would require a resurrection, or at least a séance, were Mr. Rogers ever to be actually elected. And like the prophet Samuel, the ghost of Fred Rogers might object.

Perhaps the polarized American electorate could have a kumbaya moment wth Barnie the (purple) Dinosaur; that is all except the Liberty University crowd. Obviously, Kermit the Frog, Roger Rabbit, and Pepé Le Pew would alienate those averse to strange love. Elmer Fudd would provoke objections in those appalled by those who “cling to guns.” And cute little Dora the Explorer has unfortunately been commandeered in the service of the wedge issue of illegal immigration.

Therefore, my candidate of common choice is the bow-tied, suitably plutocratic Porky Pig, whose signature sign-off seems apropos for the times; the swan song for the fall of the American Republic and for free civic politics.

“Th-th-th-that’s all folks!”

And thus it will be said:

This is the way the American Republic ends,

Not with a bang, nor a whimper,

But with a modicum of plebeian wit.

 

 

[1] John Ibbitson, “He’ll likely lose – but Trump is the final warning to elite,” The Globe and Mail, October 7, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9434BoGkNQ.