Well, I'm back. I naturally want to thank the Monster for giving me a new lease on this website. I'd also like to acknowledge that Grumbly Muffin and Cheery Jetson have done some interesting work while I was gone.
I will comment that the previous format did not allow commentators to challenge each other; The Monster has already suggested that that was a silly policy, and he is encouraging us to swing into each other at will. So Grumbly Muffin may find her statements falling under a bit more scrutiny.
At any rate, just read Chuck Colson's latest article. On the surface I agree with a lot of what he says. He talks about how the rise of Ideology has made political debate more and more difficult. People do not have an independent standard of truth; they judge facts based on their ideology. Which is why one group sees a decorated war hero; the other sees a vainglorious coward.
That said, his answer to the problem seems to be for everybody to accept his standard as truth. Which is, at the very least, overly convenient. Specifically he is referring to the Christian Faith. I wonder if his understanding of the Christian faith is large enough to encompass the Christian who believes that it is the governments duty to take care of the poorest among us and the Christian who believes that it is unjust for the Government to take from the Wealthy to give to the Poor? But even at that, it does leave hundreds of thousands of non Christians with no seat at the American table.
Why not just have rigorous standards of truth, and live up to those? I mean I know it's a radical idea, but why not figure out what the truth is in situations and make people hold to that. That will still leave plenty of room for disagreements and arguments, I should think.
No comments:
Post a Comment