Progressive Christianity and the Generation of Luxury Moral Religion

This will be sort of a messy, rambling video but I'm trying to see how some of these elements fit together. Lots of links here.

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[PothePerson]

Thinking about spoiled children and suffering, I've recently started a new parenting strategy to deal with my 2yo having a tantrum. Whenever she starts crying, I simply ignore the fact that she's crying and attend to her needs as I would at any other time.
This makes me appear awfully insensitive to onlookers and especially to the child's two grandmothers.
The truth is that I think my daughter's suffering is real, not an act, but I don't regard all suffering as equal. Some suffering is "character building" and some of it is self inflicted.
Just some random thoughts from one parent to another.
Thanks for the video.
Have a good day, Mr VK.

[geoffrobinson]

My favorite quote about the Mars Hill podcast is someone calling for a podcast entitled the Rise & Fall of the Rise & Fall of the Mars Hill Church.

[corvusossi]

I described the concept of "Luxury Beliefs" to a young friend who grew up in difficult circumstances. She's trying to better her financial situation and is very critical of her relatives who are on a different trajectory.

She got it immediately and agrees with the concept. The elites can afford to have a poly lifestyle (or give that lip service even if they're not living it). The poor may imitate the lifestyles of rich movie stars but when the sh*t hits the fan they don't have the financial wherewithal to pick themselves back up the way elites can.

[davidbaker]

Never change your production values Paul!

[stumblingstonemusic]

Very good video, Paul. I enjoy your rambling when I have the time to listen 🙂. I was reminded at times of what Francis Schaeffer used say about people willing to accept many things as long as their personal peace and affluence was undisturbed.☹️

[greenchristendom]

It's not about conservative or liberal but holding to "sound doctrine" (2 Tim 4:3) and the "deposit of faith once and for all handed down to the saints, " (Jude 1:3) as fidelity to the Lord and the heritage handed down by the Apostles he appointed. Protestants may consider this to consist in Scripture alone and Catholics Scripture and Tradition with the potential of authoritative exercise of "binding and lossing" (Mat 16:19, 18:18) by the Apostles' sucessors to insure that deposit is adhered to. But in eighther case certain things are pretty clear from just reading Scripture and from what most Christian s seeking to adhere to that heritage have always believed. Confirming to the world rather than being transformed by Christ can go both ways, Christians believing that whatever the market says is right and that employers don't have the obligation to pay just living family wages (synonyms pretty well) are wrong about this even if they rightly oppose evident evils like pre-natal infanticide, and it should be pretty evident that they just can't go along with laisse fair if they read the prophets, the jubilee laws and the NT, but habituated cultural blindness is a bit different than conscious and deliberate rejection of what one knows to be contrary to Scriptural and traditional (in however broad a sense) teaching. I would tend to consider myself a conservative because I reject the individualistic anti-traditional anthropology of the French revolution and the enlightenment, but still these terms are more political than about Christianity, faithful or conformist would be better.

[jimluebke]

"Many like William Jennings Bryan had in their views, Social Darwinism." Doesn't that just pile on the ironies, then?

If you've ever actually read the section on evolution from the biology textbook Scopes was teaching out of, you might be shocked to find how much Social Darwinism was in there. The book straight up lamented that the United States was unwilling to go to the lengths that some European countries could go to, in the name of eugenics.

If a textbook including that message was used in an American classroom today, we'd still be calling its banning and for the resignation of teachers and administrators who championed it, and we'd be absolutely right to do so.

If you included those readings during scene changes in the propaganda piece, "Inherit the Wind", the audience would leave the theater with the idea that Clarence Darrow and H L Mencken were monsters. Include evidence that WJB was a eugenicist as well, and they'd leave thinking, "A plague on both their houses".

It's interesting to note, too, that the textbook came out in 1914 and the Scopes trial was in 1925. Germany, infamous for its government eugenics programs in the 1930s and 1940s, allegedly based much of their policy on what was going on in the US.

[anselman]

5:04 One has to question the notion of mediaeval Europe outside of the monasteries as being largely populated by "drowsy nominal Catholics". I think this is likely to be a parody, and is not borne of a real investigation into the piety of the laity as encouraged by their parish priests and by the orders of preaching friars. Certainly there is evidence of some corruption and decadence in both the religious orders and among the laity, as happens in Reformed/Protestant societies also, but to argue that the existence of monasteries indicated a complacency among the clergy as to the piety of the laity seems to me to be a supposition rather than based on careful study of what information may be available. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has researched the subject of devotional and spiritual life of the laity in mediaeval times. Likewise, is there not an error in supposing that non-clergy in Protestant societies were /are somehow "slower speed" Christians than the clergy?

[FoolfTook]

1:13:55 - This little nexus resonates with the centrality Jesus gives to the golden rule. We all experience what it's like to want to be treated in a certain way. The question then becomes if we can mature enough in our theory of mind to realize that hope for ourselves is tied up in our ability to incarnate that hope to others. The attribution of the word "hypocrites!" to Jesus also resonates here, maybe especially because of the word's interesting etymology. (Either he selected it strategically from the Greek or the gospel writers did, as uniquely able to convey a biting edge about failing at one's own standard.)

[hankkruse]

Progressives regardless of religious belief seem to talk a good game and that is about it.

[jimluebke]

"Christianity is not the only way" - Leftist pastors
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" - Christ

I'm not going to say that God can't perform miracles of salvation, but I do think it gets a LOT easier for people to choose to follow the world and fall away from Christ, without explicitly Christian teaching. They won't even realize they're doing it.

[aaronlechtenberger]

"Really, sort of implicitly, where the debate is always brought, is: Who, justifiably, will we cause to suffer by the decision we make collectively"

This is the most underrated quote; coming from my own experience in the debate community. I've never come across a single statement which so succinctly put a box around all discussions in debate, every single one, while simultaneously casting a new light on the entire enterprise. Debate has always been interesting and engaging, but also repulsively disconnected from the outside world. Varying parts of the whole of society was to be sacrificed in our arguments for society's own good - to obtain racial justice, sexual justice, to obtain community. I think it's sadly funny now, but self-sacrifice would never be enough to fight systemic racism - it always had to be bits and pieces of other (powerful) people who were sacrificed to save the oppressed from oppression. I wonder what it would take to counter that inherent egoism, of managing and fixing the whole of society - of instead humbly choosing some minor act to try and embody the love of Christ in the world. I'm sad that it feels like so much of the debate community is missing out on such a large part of life by chasing things so far out of reach.

[xton]

Excellent! A well articulated broad historical sweep of religion, morality, the social face of the church and even up to the act of "taking a knee."

[diannalaubenberg]

With regard to success: (I hope this makes someone smile.) My favorite cartoon has a place on my fridge. It's a little boy and little girl learning to roller skate. The little boy is on the floor, obviously having just fallen. The little girl, who has a pillow tied around her waist, says, "Success is getting up just one more time than you fall down."

[davidbaker]

Driscoll bullied Justin Brierley on his own was quite funny!

[SamuelAdamsT]

The pew rental system dates back to puritan times in congregational churches. Instead of paying tithes you rented your pew. Pews in more prominent places demanded a higher price. Families would decorate and personalize their pew. I didn't know Presbyterians ever did that. 26:00

[lzzrdgrrl]

Former radio host, Lincoln Brown put this up 09.26.2021 on PJMedia, and the payoff paragraph for me was:

suspect that the American Church has made itself into an idol that it expects God to inhabit. Back when I was going to seminary online, I was deep into the Christian lifestyle and was listening to a famous national Christian radio network. During a pledge drive, a woman called in and gushed about how the radio station had changed her husband’s life and that now he was saved because of the jocks and their playlist. Apparently, Jesus had nothing to do with that. A church I used to attend now tosses beachballs into the congregation and sings Disney and country music songs in an effort to be attractional and get the numbers. This, as the big-business church model is burning down. Even as empires like Hillsong are starting to

- - Is It Time for the American Church to Grow Up?, Lincoln Brown, PJMedia

[doctorisout]

I can't get past the frankly numinous whenever I reconsider the CS Lewis passage. Here out west, you can find some really dark woods. Inky Black. Places Sky and Telescope says to go.

The stars are so big they hang around your head and shoulders. Sometimes you cannot move or breathe.

[Stygard]

Once again, loving your content, it's really helping think. I see evangelical Christianity falling apart in my own family between my parents, siblings and in laws, and I am getting a better idea of why. I see why I left southern Baptist to become Catholic. I don't regret my choice, but I see that there were deeper issues at work in me then I realized 4 years ago.

[kingdomkid]

This was great. That line you had about what ideals are.. 👌🏼