miscellanies (22 Mar 2025)
not so random reads from the interwebs
miscellany [ mis-uh-ley-nee], noun 1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items 2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book
This week is politics, religion, and even the blending of the two...oh, hic sunt dragones (here be dragons)...definitely dangerous territory. Enjoy!
Elon's Family Values. Elon Musk is a polarizing figure. People either love him or hate him. He has confirmed having twelve children with three different women and possibly a fourteenth child with a fourth woman. Paradoxically, he is also held up as the poster child of all things right-wing and conservative. Really? Could it be because of his relationship with the President? Disappointingly, it is the same allegedly-conservative Right that now also heartily supports IVF as a noble and ethical way to have children. Again, really? I suspect this is for the same reason. As this article's author points out, “Not so long ago, the right was seen as the bastion of traditionalism, uniformly supportive, in principle if not in practice, of family values.” What happened? What, exactly, is our political right 'conserving'? I confess, I no longer think I have a clue.
Not the abstract... Because of its emphasis on limited atonement (i.e. the idea that Christ died only for the elect) and the inability to ever know with certainty whether or not one is elect, one of the great struggles I had as a Calvinist/Reformed Christian was grasping for any sort of assurance of God's mercy toward me, personally. That understanding of Scripture makes such assurance impossible. In contrast to that, Lutheranism, with its historic understanding of Christ's death for all sinners, was a great comfort. As usual, Pr. Peters makes a wonderfully-practical application of this profound and comforting truth. “Sin in general has often come to distance the individual from his or her sins. If everyone is a sinner, then no one really is, right? Christ did not enter the world because of sin in general but for particular sins and sinners. Of course, He died for all but that sentence only has meaning if He died for me...Each one of us, with all our sins and failures, happiness and joys, fears and doubts, trials and troubles, interests and desires — each of us are known to God.” In other words, take heart, dear Christian, knowing that Christ died for you.
Instead of a third article, this week I leave you with another Harold Bloom quote:
You can't think at all clearly or well without memory and it matters a great deal what you remember. And, if what you remember is mediocre stuff, you are not going to be able to think very well. And, if as a nation we stop thinking well, someday we will yet cease to be a democracy. It really matters – reading the best that has been written ever, the best that has been thought ever.
— Harold Bloom, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
