David Westerfield

Gospel. Culture. Technology. Music.

Tag: secularization


The Protestant Deformation and American Foreign Policy – An Essay by James Kurth

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On May 29, 2015

In Christian Culture, Culture, History

The following is an essay from 2001 by political scientist James Kurth on the “Protestant Deformation” or what could be described as the radical secularization of Protestantism. As he notes, we’re now entering the final stages of this deformation, a long and twisty road that has led us to a radical individualism that threatens a new form of totalitarianism upon the free world: the totalitarianism of the self. Enjoy.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120119184608/http://phillysoc.org/Kurth%20Speech.htm
H/T http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-protestant-deformation/

Analysts of American foreign policy have debated for decades about the relative influence of different factors in the shaping of American foreign policy. National interests, domestic politics, economic interests, and liberal ideology have each been seen as the major explanation for the peculiarities of the American conduct of foreign affairs. But although numerous scholars have advocated the importance of realism, idealism, capitalism, or liberalism, almost no one has thought that Protestantism – the dominant religion in the United States – is worth consideration. Certainly for the twentieth century, it seemed abundantly clear that one could (and should) write the history of American foreign policy with no reference to Protestantism whatsoever.

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Today Show Reports Yet Another Gem – Spanking Makes Your Kid Dumb

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On September 25, 2009

In Christian Culture, Commentary, Culture, Theology, worldview

Religiously convicted parents’ disciplining techniques make their kids dumber than more “enlightened,” secular parenting techniques, according to “new” analysis; that is, parenting techniques are better for your childs’ intelligence coming from a worldview and presupposition that denies the inherent wickedness of a persons’ heart, or rather, just denies the very existence of sin in general.

Okay this research didn’t say that out-right, but using deductive reasoning, one can easily fill in the blanks about where they are coming from in their broader worldview assumptions that always seems to “inform” the scientific method they employ.

Please give me another heaping dose of misinformation, NBC.

So should I go with this researchers’ “finely tuned,” humanistic, enlightened analysis of parenting? (Emphases and bracketed insertions mine)

  • “‘All parents want smart children,’ said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. ‘This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen.'”
  • “‘You can’t say it proves it, but I think it rules out so many other alternatives [great postmodern acrobatics, pure certain uncertainty?]; I am convinced that spanking does cause a slowdown in a child’s development of mental abilities,’ Straus told LiveScience.”

Or should I go with the Word of God, despite the unpopularity or difficulty of doing so?

  • “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” – Proverbs 13:24
  • “Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.” – Proverbs 19:18
  • “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” – Proverbs 22:15
  • “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” – Proverbs 29:15
  • “Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.” – Proverbs 29:17

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Thoughts on the Day After an Historic Election – James White

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On November 7, 2008

In Apologetics, Christian Culture, Culture, Politics, Theology, Video

Sad Irony

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On January 12, 2007

In Theology

“There is a sad irony in the seeming success of many Christian churches and schools. The irony is that the more you adjust obscure Biblical doctrines to make Christian reality more attractive to unbelievers, the less Christian reality there is when they arrive. Which means that what looks like success in the short run, may, in the long run, prove to be failure. If you alter or obscure the Biblical portrait of God in order to attract converts, you don’t get converts to God, you get converts to an illusion. This is not evangelism, but deception.

One of the results of this kind of ‘success’ is that sooner or later the world wakes up to the fact that these so-called Christian churches look so much like them and the way they think that there is no reason to go there. If you adjust your doctrine to fit the world in order to attract the world, sooner or later the world realizes that they already have what the church offers. That was the story of much of mainline Protestantism in Europe and America in the 20th century. Adjust your doctrine – or just minimize doctrine – to attract the world, and in the very process of attracting them, lose the radical truth that alone can set them free.

There are thousands of pastors and churches today that do not think that clear, Biblical, doctrinal views are vital in the life of the church or the believer. They believe it is possible to grow a healthy church while leaving the people with few and fuzzy thoughts about what God is like. But ignorance about God is never a mere vacuum. The cavity created by ignorance fills up with something else.

Edward Norman, in his book, Secularization: New Century Theology, goes right to the heart of the problem when he describes what that something else is:

‘Christianity is not being rejected in modern society – what is causing the decline of public support for The Church is the insistence of church leaders themselves in representing secular enthusiasm for humanity as core Christianity.’ (Ibid, p. 10)

At first the world is drawn to a religious form of ‘enthusiasm for humanity,’ but then it wears thin and they realize that they can find it more excitingly on TV.

Romans 9 is a great antidote against such diseases in the church. This chapter is not rooted in ‘enthusiasm for humanity,’ but in the staggering, shocking, deeply satisfying sovereignty of God. My prayer is that we will see God for who he really is with his jagged peaks and fathomless deeps, and that, by his grace, many will come – not to celebrate themselves, but to worship God.”

– John Piper, My Anguish: My Kinsmen Are Accursed

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