Christians who wish to proudly hail what America has been, at this last gleaming of its twilight, may ponder how Christian faith relates to other worldviews in its founding. TGC recently carried my reflection on whether Christians and non-Christians can affirm the declarations of the Declaration together:

The stakes in this question are high. If basic human rights really are self-evident, as the Declaration declares, there’s hope for religious freedom. But what then becomes of the necessity of Christ’s revelation? On the other hand, if only biblical revelation is truly self-evident, how is peace with our neighbors possible?

A time of night is coming on, and there will be rockets glaring and bombs bursting. But there will be some kind of dawn’s early light on the other side of this night – and our flag may well still be there, waving over some kind of new world, but a new world that grew in some way out of the old world; one in which people made in God’s image will still hunger for a land of the free and a home of the brave.

I’ve started putting together a playlist of things that hearten and console, In These Times:

And here’s the oldest poem I have written down in my archives (not absolutely the first, but I’m not going to dig out my old file with scraps of blotter pads and napkins on it to check, right now).

For, y’know, a sense of depth.

“To Live”

to laugh at the threat of evil;
to defy death and pain
in a quest for the right,
the greatest gain.

to sneer at wrong and might;
to breath free and deep;
to laugh and love,
to lose and weep.

to be free to the last,
to die with grace;
in the pursuit of truth
to set high the pace.

1991 PGE

Send me a link if you have something to suggest for this playlist. I think we all need it.

(continued from Part One elsewhere)

And then there’s the other question: how to handle situations in which people, whatever their states of brokenness and healing, want to access basic social necessities (access to institutions, the ol’ “bathroom” question, etc.) that we would not dream of denying anyone, but which are treated socially or administratively under conventions that they don’t “fit” in some way?

It seems obvious to me that we should make such decisions with careful reasoning that preserves intact–lip-service to neither–two principles:

• Reasonable people try to encourage the integration of each person into any society whose formal principle that person espouses; and
• Reasonable people do not demand social integration as a means of destroying a society whose formal principles they oppose.

Now, a society whose formal principles are based in the reality of the creaturely being of humans is not going to be able to agree that someone who is known to be a man should be approved in presenting as a woman (except obviously for comedy &c) or vice versa. However, a society whose formal principles included hospitality to those who do not fully understand its principles, or who espoused its principles but were not at this time able to “fit” its conventions, might obviously seek some third way.

Such a third way seems manifestly appropriate, for example, in the case of Christian schools (and, frankly, ought to satisfy secular requirements best, too): the availability of one-hole “family” bathrooms that had already begun to provide a less-awkward facility for Mommy out with The Boy or Daddy out with The Girl. If one is interested in reality, rather than defeating euphemism in order to secure nominal endorsement, that provides a “fig leaf.”

Also, it should not be omitted that a basic habit of decency forbids peering into other’s off-stage (hence potentially “obscene”) behavior uninvited, where such knowledge is not forced upon one (which is unseemly) or part of one’s strict obligations (as, for example, a pastor to teachers in a religious school). Thus a hospitable society should consider finding many tacit ways to reinforce that habit, to make the use of one’s genitalia not seem like a fit subject of everyday conversation.

Good luck with that, in a day when trying to be nice to everyone and not ask about their tackle makes you a probable target of a lawsuit or a federal administrative action, though; I say better to be boldly “out” about Christian principle, down to the metaphysical nitty-gritty, and then throw arms wide and red carpets of hospitality, friendship bread and all, out to any who nonetheless choose to come among you, no matter what kind or where from. And good luck with that, too.

In other news, I’m launching a new series of posts at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice on the crisis in the education reform movement. Longstanding tensions are becoming an open rift that threatens to bring down what has become a politically very successful movement.

On the one side are technocrats, who bulid centralized systems of control that reduce education to no more than reading and math scores. On the other side are advocates of choice and decentralization, who typically offer little positive vision for what education is for.

In the introduction, just published, I survey the argument that I will unpack over the course of the series:

• The technocratic approach will be a disaster, not only because the technocratic system will be undermined by ignorance and corruption (although that, too, is important!) but because technocracy is based on a false, materialistic understanding of the good life for human beings.
• To effectively counter technocracy, advocates of choice and decentralization must stop thinking that choice (“let a thousand flowers bloom”) gives them a hall pass to get out of talking about the purpose of education – involving potentially divisive questions about the good, the true and the beautiful, and what it means to be human.
• In a society where we have freedom to disagree about the transcendent, we must not try to make public policy that avoids the transcendent, but ground public policy – above all education policy! – in transcendent commitments that justify our freedom disagree about the transcendent.

The series proper will launch right after Friedman Legacy Day on July 29 and will run once every few weeks through the fall. Watch this space for updates; in the meantime, I welcome your thoughts as always!

It’s fine to be angry, but what we want is resolve, not anger.

Anger coalesces around a perceived injustice, and assumes hope that things could be better, so in proportion it is good. But anger does not intrinsically suggest a course of action, so repeatedly arousing and manifesting anger is an exhausting cycle.

On the other hand, just attempting to still anger, to shut it down and make it go away, involves denying that sense of justice or abandoning that hope. That’s not a good idea at all; although in cases a malformed conscience or a traumatized emotional makeup may have a hair-trigger for an out-of-proportion response to certain injustices, the solution is to recognize and correct that disproportion. And while some wishful thinking masquerades as hope, only well-grounded expectations of real goods–real hope–can possibly serve in the place of hope. And, for what it’s worth, real hope is always an infused virtue, something the Holy Spirit makes real in you, directed toward the triumph of the Son of God in your life and in the world.

So we must not commit the grave sins of despair or of stifling truth and justice. But anger by itself is just exhausting, a ready pathway to acedia.  And when we begin to feel the despair of anger unlinked from effective action, we start to lash out at others and to engage in emotional blackmail (bitterness also isolates us, which starts the “misery loves company” wheel turning).

We should strive to resist both emasculation and enervation.

What we need is resolve, friends.

Let me allow a pagan with an out-of-proportion sense of this virtue to stir up your thinking on the matter:

Although all things are not to be judged in this manner, I mention it in the investigation of the Way of the Samurai. When the time comes, there is no moment for reasoning. And if you have not done your inquiring beforehand , there is most often shame. Reading books and listening to people’s talk are for the purpose of prior resolution. Above all, the Way of the Samurai should be in being aware that you do not know what is going to happen next, and in querying every item day and night. Victory and defeat are matters of the temporary force of circumstances.

(source: Yamamoto Tsunetomo – Wikiquote)

Tsunetomo also criticizes the legendary Forty-Seven Samurai for waiting a year to make circumspect plans (in fact, history suggests they were politicking to protect their families and other interests), rather than either attacking at once or committing seppukku (the real role of ritual suicide in historical Japanese culture is an extensive conversation best saved for another time, but let’s just say that for Tsunetomo it was a mostly legendary act in a mostly legendary story).  He says:

Concerning the night assault of Lord Asano’s ronin, the fact that they did not commit seppuku at the Sengakuji was an error, for there was a long delay between the time their lord was struck down and the time when they struck down the enemy. If Lord Kira had died of illness within that period, it would have been extremely regrettable.

(source: Yamamoto Tsunetomo – Wikiquote)

Now, important things are missing in this account during a relatively settled period of the Shogunate, but there is an insight into virtue that is solidly present in Tsunetomo that is missing elsewhere.

If your anger is justified–that is, if you have just cause and you have hope that change can be effected–then translate it into action by the shortest path possible.

And on an ongoing basis, continue to express and to call forth in others the resolution to act, to take the shortest path from identifying a wrong to righting it, every day.

Do not judge the value of a resolution by its likelihood of success, but by whether the action itself is possible, just, and has reasonable hope of succeeding.  Many a necessary action is unlikely to achieve all you desire, but is there something you can do that will in fact make a difference?

Do not forget to pray.  And do not forget that prayer which is merely wishing, which is unlinked from hope–reasonable expectation of good, based in God’s promises well understood–is unlikely to be effective.  (Do it anyway, but don’t do it alone; that’s how you heal your prayers and actions both.)

In this way, it is possible to know peace and also to insist that others act, to insist vehemently and with conviction, without constantly stirring up anger in ever-increasing doses with ever-less hope.

It is hard to do, I know.  Our circumstances, and our outraged loves, are constant invitations to despair.  You must move beyond anger to resolve, though, to keep hope alive.

Yes, it is hard.

It is necessary for you to do it.