Paul, Greg Juggling
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Some rules for living a-right from Wendell Berry:
1. Beware the justice of Nature.
2. Understand that there can be no successful human economy apart from Nature or in defiance of Nature.
3. Understand that no amount of education can overcome the innate limits of human intelligence and responsibility. We are not smart enough or conscious enough or alert enough to work responsibly on a gigantic scale.
4. In making things always bigger and more centralized, we make them both more vulnerable in themselves and more dangerous to everything else. Learn, therefore, to prefer small-scale elegance and generosity to large-scale greed, crudity, and glamour.
5. Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made.
6. Put the interest of the community first.
7. Love your neighbors--not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have.
8. Love this miraculous world that we did not make, that is a gift to us.
9. As far as you are able make your lives dependent upon your local place, neighborhood, and household--which thrive by care and generosity--and independent of the industrial economy, which thrives by damage.
10. Find work, if you can, that does no damage. Enjoy your work. Work well.
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What do you think? What rules would you add or take away?
64 comments:
Pave way to oppression, for pacifism invites it.
Do not let anger gnaw at your heart. It is a self-inflicted wound and does not heal.
Nice one, Tim.
Should one prefer large-scale elegance and generosity to small-scale crudity and greed? Or is Berry suggesting, ludicrously, that the small scale is inherently elegant and generous and that the large scale is inherently crude and greedy? Those who own small family farms are incapable of greedily defrauding their neighbors? International organizations like the Red Cross are incapable of altruistically providing relief during natural disasters?
(And what does happen when your local place, neighborhood, and household are all devastated by a hurricane, flood, earthquake, or tsunami? Since disasters can overwhelm any local community, should those communities not cooperate on a greater scale?)
If the local place, neighborhood, and household "thrive by care and generosity," why didn't Christ simply teach salvation through localism? And why in the world did He come to preach initially to a community that was more tied to its geographical location and its culture than any of its neighbors?
And how does one reconcile this near-idolatrous worship of the local community with the Great Commission and the duty to make disciples throughout the world? In attempting to make the Christian church bigger, was Paul guilty of violating Rule #4? In leaving his home to preach to Gentiles in what would become Turkey and Italy, did he violate Rules #6 and 7?
And if Paul the Apostle was guilty of violating Berry's rules for living a-right and was guilty precisely insofar as he took seriously Christ's commands, just how trustworthy are those rules of his after all?
...and -- and this is almost an afterthought, though it surely shouldn't be -- shouldn't each of us be dependent, not on the local economy or on a global economy, but on the grace of God?
I mostly like these, but I have some reservations about 3 & 4. I think they will encourage the whole "let's shrink government to the size we can drown in a bathtub" crowd. I prefer the principle of subsidiarity: Problems should be addressed at the most local level possible and only move to a larger or more central solution for those problems which require it.
I'm working on a series on limited government (a legitimate principle in a way that knee-jerk calls for "small government" are not). I also worry about global transnational corporations--but unlike Berry I would not make them illegal or say that ALL such arrangement are always wrong.
I think Berry would have to re-word 3 & 4 before I could affirm them.
Bubba asked all manner of good questions, including:
"And how does one reconcile this near-idolatrous worship of the local community with the Great Commission and the duty to make disciples throughout the world?"
I'd just answer that Berry is making a list of how to live well (morally and with enough) within this world with each other - not making a proposal for a church entity. Having said that, I think living well, morally and with enough, IS a good Christian thing to do.
Berry tends to stay away from the overtly religious traditions ("evangelism," preaching, etc) and stick with the more practical ways of morality. Not necessarily a bad thing, to me.
I don't see how you perceive his emphasis upon the local as "near-idolatrous." If I may be so bold: It is Berry's position that the larger things get, the more unwieldy, less sustainable things tend to get which can and often does lead to a lack of morality and a presence of oppression and corruption.
Would he deny the small scale greed where it occurs? Not at all. He'd maintain, however, that it's easier to deal with a greedy or irresponsible neighbor when he's actually your neighbor and not a faceless corporation that is headquartered everywhere and nowhere. Further, he'd suggest that with great size comes the tendency towards, if not evil, then at least corruption.
These seem to me to be reasonable points.
Michael, I don't think Berry is opposed to centralized action when necessary but I think he tends to be pretty distrusting of the gov't to do much effectively or benevolently.
Dan, it's one thing to have a healthy skepticism of centralization, not only because it's prone to corruption but because it's prone to being inept: the inefficiencies of bureaucracy is a balance against the economies of scale.
It's another thing altogether to act as if things that are small are inherently immune from sin. If Berry doesn't genuinely believe that, his writing ought to be more precise in order to reflect that fact, even if such precision undercuts his demonization of global trade.
On this point, you write, "Would he deny the small scale greed where it occurs? Not at all. He'd maintain, however, that it's easier to deal with a greedy or irresponsible neighbor when he's actually your neighbor and not a faceless corporation that is headquartered everywhere and nowhere."
If he maintains such a thing, it certainly isn't evident in the list of rules you provided, in which local communities "thrive by care and generosity." I think you're giving him more credit than his writing suggests.
And it's not simply that Berry doesn't emphasize things like evangelism, which you suggest is a mere "tradition" and not a command. His emphasis on loyalty to the local community CONFLICTS with evangelism. Whether he was proposing a church entity or not, it seems that he has given a set of rules that conflicts with at least some of Christ's commands.
Hmmm. No mention of God at all... How curious. The justice of nature, but not the justice of God... Curiouser still.
Bubba complained:
"If Berry doesn't genuinely believe that, his writing ought to be more precise in order to reflect that fact"
This was a brief list. I encourage you to read any of Berry's writings to get a fuller understanding of his positions. He's quite the philosopher. I might suggest beginning with his book, "A Continuous Harmony" or "What are People For?"
I must admit, I don't get what you and Elashley are concerned about. I mean, this statement:
"His emphasis on loyalty to the local community CONFLICTS with evangelism."
What?
Feel free to show me how in the world living right with an emphasis on living right locally is in ANY way a conflict with "evangelism."
Feel free to show me how in the world living right with an emphasis on living right locally is in ANY way a conflict with "evangelism.">
It is not a conflict, but it is not sufficient in and of itself. Reaching out to others and spreading the gospel is evangelism in my book.
Here's a Wendell Berry quote, from MY Flower Power, the youth newsletter insert in the church bulletin last Sunday ("MY" stands for "Mayflower Youth" at Mayflower Congregational-UCC Church, Oklahoma City):
"Eating with the fullest pleasure -- pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance -- is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend."
And, anyone who doesn't see "God" in that, or in Dan's original post, is blind, blind, blind.
Well, blind or not looking in the first place -- just waiting to be hit over the head with something obvious.
Fed more spiritual milk in other words. Or Similac. :-)
Brief as that list was, Dan, it emphasized localism in at least three places in rules #5, 7, and 9. A less redundant list could have provided more room for a more comprehensive introduction to Wendell Berry's philosophy...
...unless, as I suspect, localism is so central to his philosophy that that redundancy is an appropriate illustration of his priorities.
I haven't read the books you name, but, really, you don't have to read the books of (for instance) Thomas Sowell to grasp that he believes in the morality and efficiency of the free market. If I did read those books, would I really discover that Wendell Berry has a passion for evangelism? If I wouldn't, doesn't my criticism then have some amount of merit?
Though I haven't read those books, I have read a lengthy interview of Wendell Berry. There, he admits that his religious beliefs are of his own making -- that his approach to religion "has pretty much been from the bottom up," and he demonstrates that he uses Scripture for his own purposes, mentioning that one of his fictional characters takes a verse from the Pauline epistles and "carries it on," he says, "to where I want it." But, most germane to this discussion, he says that living in a certain place is comparable to a marriage; by that formulation, Paul was guilty of a kind of adultery when he travelled the ancient world to spread the Gospel.
You write, "Feel free to show me how in the world living right with an emphasis on living right locally is in ANY way a conflict with 'evangelism.'"
I'm not quite sure why the word is in quotes, just as I still don't know what to make of your implying that evangelism is a mere tradition rather than an explicitly Christian duty, but the answer to your request is simple: Wendell Berry limits the duty to love your neighbor in a way Christ never did, writing, "Love your neighbors--not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have."
Jesus Christ made no such limitation and instead commanded us to go to the entire world and make disciples. Paul didn't live by such a limitation when he travelled the Mediterranean, preaching to people he had never before met.
There's a good bit that's commendable about Berry: at the very least, the discussions his writings prompt cause people to think seriously about issues they probably haven't considered before, and his ideas about stewardship are probably at least compatible with Scripture.
But I think he overemphasizes and very nearly idolizes all things local, putting undue faith in and undue emphasis on traditions and the local community. One of the consequences of that emphasis is that -- so far as I can tell -- his philosophy might not lend itself to encouraging the Christian duty of evangelism and may truly conflict with it.
Holding and expressing that belief ought not to be controversial. Just because you like the guy and what he writes doesn't mean that the good things he's written are ipso facto wholly compatible with the Good News we've been given.
Redneck, that quote doesn't seem to be explicitly Christian and probably could have been uttered by a pantheist or hedonist.
The important thing is not our "connection with the world" but our reconciliation with God through Christ.
In both that statement and in his rules for clean livin', I see a man reaching admirably for things that are virtuous but falling well short of the revealed truth of the Bible.
"Wendell Berry limits the duty to love your neighbor in a way Christ never did, writing, "Love your neighbors--not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have."
Bubba, I think you're taking that the wrong way. What I hear in that little line is that we ought to love our neighbors - not just our friends or the people who are like us, but our real neighbors. That strikes me as very in line with Jesus' message about loving our neighbors - even the Samaritans.
As to much else of what you've written, do you judge every writer on the same basis? Thomas Sowell doesn't often bring up God or evangelism in his essays, does that mean we ought to reject what he's saying out of hand?
I'd suggest we read Sowell or Berry on the basis of what they say and evaluate it for what's there.
So, based on what he's said, you think he writes too much about being kind to your local people, encouraging healthy local living, a sustainable local economy and living within our local means - is that your complaint? Really?
I assume a Christian context if I know a writer is a Christian, whether or not he makes it explicit.
And, call me ER. :-)
Re, "revealed truth of the Bible," within the context of Berry, these lines from the Wikipedia article on "bibliolatry" come to mind:
"Many Christians believe that God is revealed only through the Bible and that everything about the Bible reveals God. Some contend that this is essentially worship of the Bible, and that God is also revealed through the study of nature, reason (Logos), traditional practice and individual experience, all of which must be taken into account when deciding how to truly follow God and how to properly interpret any scripture."
If the emphasis on the local thwarts evangelism, GREAT! Evangelism has caused more harm and grief in the world than all other causes combined. It was evangelism that inspired Constantine, was responsible for the Crusades, was responsible for the genocide committed by the Conquistators, and accounts for most wars fought in modern times.
Islamic jihadists are just another form of evangelist.
Bubba:"Jesus Christ made no such limitation and instead commanded us to go to the entire world and make disciples."
He did not such thing. This is one of those subtleties of translation upon which a whole theology is falsely suspended. In the great commissions, the word 'go' is a present participle (proseuthentes) which is clearly not a command. It more accurately reads "As you go among the nations..." with the flavor of "Since you will likely be going among the nations anyway ..."
How is it then that something sooooo Christian as the Great Commission could have cause so much death and destruction? Simple. Evangelists are the Antichrist. The prefix 'anti' doesn't man openly and directly opposed to, rather it means 'attached to'. The image comes from two combatants in the type of warfare conducted in that day would grab onto one another while fighting and stay attached or close during combat. Hence the image of two soldiers fighting 'agaisnt' each other. But 'against' in this sense is like 'the rake is leaning against the wall'. Doesn't mean it's oppenly opposed to it, but rather leaning on it or attached to it.
The false doctrine of evangelism is something attached to Christ by not a part of Him, hence it is Antichrist.
10. Find work, if you can, that does no damage. Enjoy your work. Work well.
Aye, there's the rub. It is much like one of the principles of the Eightfold Path "Right Livelihood."
And make no mistake that for the reflective and contemplative, it is no easy nut to crack. Doubly so in our modern world and our modern culture which is solidly based on exploitaton.
I am no longer sure what a right livelihood would look like. I strive toward it, but it's like moving a piano through a china shop. How do you manage not to knock over a vew cups and vases along the way?
I am sure what it doesn't look like. It doesn't involve parasitism and idleness. A person need only look at their hands and their wasteline to check whether they are living at the expense of someone else's labor. And to check their basket at day's end. If it contains nothing but bags of air and papers shuffled from basket to basket, it is not a right livelihood.
Eleutheros said, speaking of the Great Commission and evangelism:
"He did not such thing. This is one of those subtleties of translation upon which a whole theology is falsely suspended."
Bubba, THIS is at least partly why I put "evangelism" in quotation marks. I don't really agree with much of what evangelism has come to mean. As I understand it, it's original meaning is to speak the Good News, but the ways the church has used evangelism ("You're going to hell if you don't stop what yer doin' - this is the good news, you fool!") oftentimes leaves me cold.
You want to speak Good News in the sense that Jesus said he was doing (God has annointed me to bring Good News to the poor, release for the captive, heath for the ill and the day of Jubilee), then I'm down widdit. Otherwise, I'm more cautious.
Dan, I don't believe Thomas Sowell has ever proposed a list of rules similar to Berry's, but if he has, that list should be scrutinized by the same question, is this consistent with the teachings of Christ? My problem isn't that Berry teaches that we take care of our local affairs; my concern is that he does so to the exclusion of other duties and that he fetishes all things local as if "local" is itself inherently virtuous.
But all this seems beside the point if you're going to quote approvingly eleutheros' latest nonsense.
("Evangelism has caused more harm and grief in the world than all other causes combined"? Really? I was under the impression that it was paid clergy that "is ultimately responsible for most of the ills in the world.")
The use of the present participle for "go" in Matthew 28:19 hardly makes his case that evangelism is a false doctrine, antichrist and an artificial attachment to Christ.
Either Christ commands us to go or presumes we will be going. Either way, it appears that He does command us to disciple all the nations.
But, ignoring that, you reiterate El's writing that evangelism is part of a false theology, bemoan all the ills that have been caused by the abuse of evangelism, and decide to put the word in scare-quotes.
You invoke Luke 4:18-19 as if that passage contains the only thing Christ ever preached and criticize evangelism that includes references to damnation, as if Jesus Christ never broached the very same topic.
That makes me wonder precisely what you're going to do when you reach Matthew 6:12-37 in your little overview of the Sermon on the Mount, but it also makes clear that our two understandings of our duties as Christians are probably largely incompatible. I believe you have an extraordinarily narrow view of the Great Commission, to the degree that you object far more to my fairly orthodox view than to the radical ramblings of Eleutheros, so I'm not sure further dialogue is profitable between us.
"I don't believe Thomas Sowell has ever proposed a list of rules similar to Berry's, but if he has, that list should be scrutinized by the same question, is this consistent with the teachings of Christ?"
And I don't believe you've offered anything to show me why you think what Berry says is anything but consistent with Jesus' teachings - do you have anything on that?
I believe I've already addressed the request, noting that I believe Rule #7 is inconsistent both with the Great Commission as Christ gave it and as lived by the example of Paul. The conclusion seems at least plausible since I pointed to an interview in which Berry compares living in a certain place to a marriage, which would make Paul's mission work tantamount to adultery.
I also asked you a question or two: "If I did read those books [you recommend], would I really discover that Wendell Berry has a passion for evangelism? If I wouldn't, doesn't my criticism then have some amount of merit?"
Does Wendell Berry promote evangelism somewhere? If so, where?
This is not a religious manifesto, Bubba. I don't know what Berry's position on evangelism is.
Is that the criteria by which you judge every written work? Is the Constitution of the US bogus because it nowhere promotes evangelism? How about the instruction booklet for how to program your DVD - should it be rejected because it ignores the critical evangelism question?
This is a short series of rules for Right Living in a Community.
Tell you what, just stick to my original question:
What rules would you add or take away?
If you want to add:
11. Do evangelism...
knock yerself out.
If you want to say,
"I'd change #7 to say simply, Love all your neighbors, and send missionaries to China cuz they're our neighbors, too"
Then do so.
I wasn't really expecting much in the way of religious opposition on this post. Especially from someone who'd identify themselves as a conservative, as strong local communities is usually a conservative position.
Re, "so I'm not sure further dialogue is profitable between us."
Wow. I don't think that can ever, ever be true among followers of Jesus.
Perhaps my "Rules of Right Living" title is throwing you off, Bubba. These rules appear in an essay that Berry included in his "What are People For," book and is apparently advice for students given at a graduation. Berry introduces it, "And so graduates, my advice to you is simply my hope for us all:"
The "Rules for Right Living" is my title that I still think appropriate but maybe some religious folk can't abide the notion of having Rules for Right Living that doesn't mention Jesus or evangelism.
It's not that I "can't abide the notion of having Rules for Right Living that doesn't mention Jesus or evangelism," it's that I consider flawed a list of such rules that appears at least somewhat incompatible with Jesus' teachings, which includes evangelism.
Christ's two great commandments don't mention evangelism, either, but I think they're more obviously compatible with evangelism because, in commanding that we love our neighbors, they do not make limitations about which neighbors we're supposed to love.
Neither the U.S. Constitution nor DVD instructions (nor Sowell's syndicated columns for that matter) presume to give the sort of broad life lessons appropriate for a sermon or a commencement address. Wendell's list does, so it ought to be scrutinized.
But what would I add or subtract from Wendell's list? Well, I'm not sure it's a great template to begin with; I can think of others, and you're now giving an overview of a much better list of rules for right living, in covering Matthew 5-7.
But I would do this:
- In Rules #1 and 2 I would substitute "Nature" for its Creator.
- I would simplify Rule #4, as I don't believe the small scale is inherently elegant or generous, and I don't believe the large scale is inherently the opposite. Prefer elegance, prefer generosity; the scale isn't of primary importance.
- I would drop Rule #5. Truly conservatism supports strong local communities, but we do not idolize them. I believe C.S. Lewis is right that the truly eternal things are individual human souls: not governments and not cultures, and therefore not communities. We shouldn't encourage irresponsibility, but I don't believe our highest loyalty is to the communities we make.
- In Rule 6, I would say, put the interest of others first. Who the hell cares if they're authentic members of your/the community?
- Rule 7? Love your neighbor as yourself. I would not presume to be able to improve upon the original, especially by limiting its scope.
- Rule 9 I would drop altogether as I do not grant its premises about local and global economies.
But with so many changes, why have this as a starting point?
Perhaps your intent was a discussion among those who think Berry's brilliant to begin with. Sorry if I crashed the party.
You would drop, "Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made." ??
Whatever, you were and are welcome to make your own list. I thought these were fairly self-evidently moral and righteous and that there might be some tweaking. Not a wholesale rejection of statements like, "Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made."
But maybe that's just a difference between me and you. Feel free to write your own Top Ten rules from scratch if you think these are totally useless.
It's not that I think the list is totally useless: it's that I think it's flawed, and I think the rule you so passionately defend is evidence of that.
"Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made."
This is "fairly self-evidently moral and righteous"?
What about the possibility of being called to serve as mission in another corner of the globe? Does that call trump the loyalty you're supposed to have to the community you made? If so, does it count as a betrayal?
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."
Our loyalty to our own family ought not to come before our obedience to Christ, but "be loyal to your community" -- without any qualification -- is self-evidently moral?
Not to my eyes.
"What about the possibility of being called to serve as mission in another corner of the globe?"
And how does "Make a home, support a community, be loyal to them" prevent one from making a home and community elsewhere?
You've not shown me anything that is not innately moral or Christian.
I don't share Bubba's antipathy to localism. Global evangelism is not what's in view here and, knowing something of the history of missions, most good missionaries embrace their NEW local communities. Those which don't seldom make any headway.
I read much of Berry and love What Are People For, The Hidden Wound, and much else. My reservations about 3 & 4 are stated and stand firm.
I'd have to think hard before coming up with a similar list--and like your idea of substituting the Sermon on the Mount better.
Bubba, I cannot help but think that you come to Dan's blog determined AHEAD OF TIME to find him to be a heretic, knave, and fool. You don't seem to read to find out what Dan really thinks, but come out trying to find fault and to prove him wrong and you right. What's that all about?
Michael, I can probably do very little about what you can't help but think about me: I believe your theory about me is wrong, but I'm not sure what I can do to demonstrate that other than continue to present my views as honestly as I can and to take seriously what Dan writes.
Dan, I'll again point out the interview in which Berry compared loyalty to a community to a marriage. By that analogy, moving away to make a home and community elsewhere is tantamount to infidelity -- to adultery or divorce.
Let me try to explain this another way: It's not that Berry is calling bad things good: loyalty to a community is not inherently immoral. It's that -- here and elsewhere; I might not have drawn the conclusions I had without reading things like that interview -- he treats good things as nearly divine.
It's not a comparison between good and evil, it's between good and better. Berry's list isn't a list of sins, nor does it fall to the mundane of "change your oil every 3K miles and brush/floss daily," but it also doesn't rise to the brilliance of these:
- Love God.
- Love your neighbor.
- Make disciples of all nations.
If we were pretending that there were no special revelations of God and then imagining what sort of lists ought to guide our lives, Berry could have done far, far worse.
But why pretend that when we have the Sermon on the Mount?
As I said before, in Berry's list I see a man reaching admirably for things that are virtuous but falling well short of the revealed truth of the Bible.
A wiser thing to do, then, might be to see how that list measures up to the Bible rather than merely taking it as it is and tweaking it.
Perhaps my perspective on this blog entry was skewed, not by our previous discussion on pacifism, but on my existing opinion of Wendell Berry's work: I can see how his writing appeals to people looking for a counter-cultural response to the mainstream, but for the life of me I don't see how some conclude that he's a particularly insightful Christian writer.
Re, "I believe C.S. Lewis is right that the truly eternal things are individual human souls: not governments and not cultures, and therefore not communities."
I'm reminded me of the ghosts chained together in "A Christmas Carol." Corrupt governments, Dickens wrote.
Dan:"As I understand it, it's original meaning is to speak the Good News"
You'd be correct.
Euangelizomoi is a verb meaning bring good tidings. The word comes from the familiar 'eu' which means 'good' or 'well' and 'angelos' which we transliterate into English as 'angel' but is more properly 'messagner'.
Good News is a as good a rendering so long as one is aware of the distinction that an angelos brings news they have heard and are repeating while someone sent with command is a 'kerux', a herald. 'Kerux' is translated into churchspeak as 'preacher'.
By the time of the vulgate the Greek word had become a Latin loan word and thus we have the Latin verb evangelizo.
The most typical use of the verb occurs in Luke 2:10 where the angel says, "I bring you good tidings...". By using the loan word from Greek, we'd get "I evangelize you ..." Doesn modern evangelism resemble what the angels did to the shepherds?
When parts of the Bible were translated into AngloSaxon, the word, oddly enough, got translated literally as God Spel = 'good tidigns (news, story)'. and hence we get the word gospel.
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Bubba:
("Evangelism has caused more harm and grief in the world than all other causes combined"? Really? I was under the impression that it was paid clergy that "is ultimately responsible for most of the ills in the world.")
Merely the two sides of the same coin. Evangelism has been profitable through the ages and it continues unabated to this day, need I even point out the dispicable televangelists who bilk old ladies out of their money. Yet any form of being paid to divide God's word is just another degree of the same thing.
Bubba said:
"Love God.
Love your neighbor."
By my way of thinking, Berry has spelled out some very concrete ways to love God and love our neighbors (including the ones on the other side of the world). You are free to think as you will.
I would suppose that Berry would reject the notion that he is speaking as a Christian writer (although he does frequently speak on and invoke specifically Christian and biblical themes), and yet, many of us would suggest that his teachings are profoundly Christ-ian - in the "Christ-like" meaning of the word, not the religiousized "jump through these hoops" meaning of the word.
When Jesus' followers asked Jesus what it meant to love our neighbor and who are neighbors are, Jesus did not rebuke them saying, "You know...love your neighbor!" Instead, he gave them some concrete, specific steps to take.
Assist the hated enemy who's dying alongside the road. Feed the hungry. Visit the prisoner. Clothe the naked.
Would you also rebuke Jesus for his short parable of the Sheep and the Goats for never specifically mentioning "evangelism," but instead "only" talking about being nice?
In Jesus' list, do you "see a man reaching admirably for things that are virtuous but falling well short of the revealed truth"?
Bubba asked:
"But why pretend that when we have the Sermon on the Mount?"
I'd suggest because we have tended to make the sermon on the mount spiritualized pablum instead of the cutting edge message it should be.
In other words, it rarely hurts to restate things for a new group of people in a new set of circumstances. Especially when people ignore the original message wholesale.
Dan:"By my way of thinking, Berry has spelled out some very concrete ways to love God and love our neighbors (including the ones on the other side of the world)."
I think so too.
Not in the Bubba-esque sense of them becoming 'evangelized' in the modern fundamentalist sense of the word, but rather in the ways you pointed out about feeding and clothing them.
It reminds me of the stance taken by so many conservatives that it's OK for millions of Hispanics to come to the US so long as the learn to "speak 'merican" like the rest of us. Otherwise all that Spanish speaking is a threat. Yes sir, as long as all those darkies and slanty-eyes become fundamentalists and say "for Jesus", the world would be just fine.
If we do not provide for ourselves locally, we are exploiting and burdening the other side of the world to provide things for us. If we concentrate our economic efforts locally, as Berry suggests, we at least get our foot off the neck of the poor of the world. That's the proper start without which all our other efforts are useless.
Dan, if you think that Berry's list is a restatement of the Sermon on the Mount, say so outright. Doing so would at least be consistent with the title you gave that list.
And, El, it's not racist to believe that a culture that is not bound together by a common language is not as strong as it could be or perhaps should be, and not every instance of traditional evangelism is corrupted by the greed of the stereotypical televangelist. I may be giving you too much credit, but I believe you actually know all this; you just can't help indulging in demagoguery every time you write.
Because your demagoguery is directed toward people and positions that Dan and Michael don't like, they'll probably never call you on it, but they should.
Actually, read back far enough or stay tuned long enough and you'll know that Eleutheros disagrees with me more often than he agrees (although, interestingly, I agree with him far more than I disagree).
As to his supposed demagoguery: If E had accused "all" or even "most" conservatives of the sort of racism he suggested, I would probably call him on it. As it is, he merely said, "It reminds me of the stance taken by so many conservatives...", a position that is doubtless factual.
And, Bubba, I don't think Berry's statement is a restatement of the Sermon on the Mount. It is akin, seems to me, to Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats.
Which, by the way, I thought was an excellent parallel for your earlier criticisms. Would you, if you saw Jesus' parable given as a graduation address, protest.
And so, my hope for you today is simply this:
1. When you see someone hungry, you'd feed them.
2. When you see someone thirsty, you'd give them a glass of water.
3. When you see someone sick or dying, you'd tend to them, providing some healthcare and compassion.
4. When you see someone in need of clothing or shelter, you'd provide it.
Would THAT commencement address give you cause to criticize the speaker, due to its missing evangelism component?
I believe things I've already written answer that question, Dan.
"And it's not simply that Berry doesn't emphasize things like evangelism, which you suggest is a mere "tradition" and not a command. His emphasis on loyalty to the local community CONFLICTS with evangelism."
"It's not that I 'can't abide the notion of having Rules for Right Living that doesn't mention Jesus or evangelism,' it's that I consider flawed a list of such rules that appears at least somewhat incompatible with Jesus' teachings, which includes evangelism."
A list for right living does not need to mention evangelism explicitly.
Let me reiterate: A list for right living does not need to mention evangelism explicitly.
Again: A LIST FOR RIGHT LIVING DOES NOT NEED TO MENTION EVANGELISM EXPLICITLY.
But I think it does need to be compatible with evangelism.
A list derived from Matthew 25:31-46 is compatible, so I wouldn't have a problem with it.
I hate that I'm having to explain what I've already written more than once.
And, for the record, I believe it's probably the case that some liberals are guilty of the bigotry of low expectations that causes them to think that people of certain racial backgrounds can't, for instance, be expected to produce photo identification at polling places. But to bring up such a thing and to couch it in such detestable language as "darkies and slanty-eyes" as a complete digression from the topic at hand because one is reminded of such a belief by a mundane thing like evangelism is still somewhat slimy, even if you're clever enough to use the adjective "many" instead of "most."
As to his supposed demagoguery: If E had accused "all" or even "most" conservatives of the sort of racism he suggested, I would probably call him on it. As it is, he merely said, "It reminds me of the stance taken by so many conservatives...", a position that is doubtless factual.>
Dan, tell us that magic number that we are allowed to insult so that this site will be fair and balanced. :)
Don't have a magical number. Just somewhere between "some" and "most."
Bubba, I'm sorry I didn't recognize that answer as a response to my question about Jesus. I asked, "Would you condemn Jesus for only saying take care of these people and not mentioning evangelism?" You answered, "And it's not simply that Berry doesn't emphasize things like evangelism..." which I did not recognize as an answer to my question.
I was expecting something more like, "No, I wouldn't condemn Jesus because..." or "Yes, I would condemn Jesus because..." (although I wasn't really expecting a Yes answer).
My apologies.
That's alright, Dan. It's just that I believe I've been clear my complaint has never been that Wendell's list omits evangelism, but rather that I believe it may hinder evangelism. Your question about Jesus' parable seemed to stem from wrongly believing that I held to the former.
I'm having to clarify myself a lot, here, reiterating not only the point above but also the belief that Berry's values aren't inherently immoral but are rather secondary to higher principles.
But when El slanders conservatives as racists, you're very quick to defend him and even to give him the benefit of the doubt. In the process you betray a prejudice against conservatives that I doubt can be justified by personal experience.
How many actual conservatives do you know personally? Of them, how many have shared their positions on immigration and assimilation and the reasons behind them? And how many have betrayed a bigotry that justifies putting in their mouths words like "darkies" and "slanty-eyes"?
If that number's quite small, what in the world justifies your belief that El is right? It sure isn't Christian charity.
"How many actual conservatives do you know personally?"
This may or may not surprise you, Bubba, but I came from a traditionally conservative background. I considered myself conservative in that sense for the first of my life. Supported Reagan for a while. I know many conservatives (not as many now, to be fair) and am well-versed in conservatism.
I do not think conservatives are monsters or racists. My best friend growing up and best man in my wedding is a very traditional conservative.
Further, this may surprise you, too, but I still consider myself a conservative in many ways. Just not the GWBush sort of "conservative."
As I stated, I do not think the majority - or anything approaching the majority - of conservatives in the way that Eleutheros intimated. But then, he didn't say they were.
I reckon you'd reject the notion of my being a conservative, but a final surprise to you may be to know that, unless I'm mistaken, Eleutheros considers himself a conservative in the same classical sense that I do.
You may want to (or not) look back at my Oct. 2005 discussion of Russell Kirk's Ten Principles of Conservatism. I agree with most of them depending upon how they're interpreted.
http://paynehollow.blogspot.com/2005_10_
01_paynehollow_archive.html
You write, "I do not think conservatives are monsters or racists" -- I wonder, how many? -- and yet you agree with El that "many" (defined as somewhere between "some" and "most", which I suppose can mean between 2 people and 50% minus 1) believe this:
...that it's OK for millions of Hispanics to come to the US so long as the learn to "speak 'merican" like the rest of us. Otherwise all that Spanish speaking is a threat. Yes sir, as long as all those darkies and slanty-eyes become fundamentalists and say "for Jesus", the world would be just fine.
Forgive me if I'm not overwhelmed at your love for conservatives, even if you are a self-described former conservative who appreciates Kirk.
As an aside: I'm not sure you agree with Kirk as much as you think. I count near-full agreement with three principles (1, 4, 9), half agreement with three (2, 8, 10), and disagreement the other four. That's hardly impressive.
In truth, you don't agree with the sixth principle at all, and your utopianism outweighs much of the praise you have for Kirk. You write about the search for utopia that anabaptists have "done it and done it remarkably well," which is such unconservative horse hockey that it defies description. Resistance to any attempt to immanentize the eschaton -- or, put another way, recognition that man can ultimately do nothing to undo our fallen nature beyond (for Christians) accepting God's grace and communicating the message of grace to others -- is fundamental to true conservatism. Sin abounds even in the Mennonite communities even if you're naive enough to think they've acheived a truly "right and just way of life." They have not, and they cannot: none of us can.
And, in your appreciation of Kirk, you betray such a fundamental misunderstanding of the political positions of mainstream conservatives that I truly wonder how much credit you expect. If you genuinely understood our positions and communicated a genuine understanding even if you disagreed, that would be something.
At any rate, if you can analyze Kirk's ten principles and point out where you agree and disagree, I'm not sure what's wrong with my doing the very same thing to Berry's ten rules. They are perhaps not as "self-evidently moral and righteous" as you thought.
"you betray such a fundamental misunderstanding of the political positions of mainstream conservatives"
sigh... Okay. How so?
For starters...
- Conservatives who support/supported the Iraq war do not define war as the deliberate killing of innocents but rather recognize that civilian casualties are an unintended yet unavoidable consequence of war -- and we balance the cost of war with the recognition of the murder of innocents that occurred under Saddam.
- We don't believe we were/are radicals in supporting the war, as we believe that the "peaceful negotiated change in Iraq that progressives were pushing" was not a plausible alternative given the decade-plus of bad faith that Saddam exhibited.
- We do not see Iraq as a pre-emptive war since Saddam spent a decade violating a cease-fire that concluded the last war, a war (I will remind you) that he started.
- On global warming and everything else, conservatives seek to examine the trade-offs. It is not imprudent to be skeptical about extraordinarily intrusive policies whose effects on the global climate are believed to be minor even by its supporters.
So: it's not as if conservatives view war as primarily murder, it's not as if we saw negotiation and war with Iraq as two viable alternatives and chose the latter, it's not as if we see war with Iraq as pre-emptive, and it's not as if we see Kyoto as a burden that will hardly be felt but whose results will be dramatic and rejected it even as such.
You don't take our positions as we say they are and then reject them: you distort them first.
(As an aside, it's not moral relativism to believe that war is sometimes morally justifiable, or do you believe that those who differentiate between surgery and mutilation are moral relativists? As another aside, the Bible and Native Americans aren't exactly on the same page on ecology: "the land is God's" and "the land is the children's" aren't identical thoughts, even though they both imply stewardship of someone else's property. But those aren't indications of misunderstanding modern conservatism.)
It's worth noting that every one of these distortions conforms with the stereotype that liberals see conservatives as evil. In your mind, everyone agrees that war is defined by the murder of innocent human life, and bloodthirsty war-mongering conservatives don't care and end up supporting murder; everyone agrees that negotiation was still a viable option, and conservatives didn't care; everyone agrees that Saddam was just minding his own damn business when we attacked his sovereign state, and conservatives didn't care; and everyone agrees that Kyoto provides a great return on the investment of the regulations it imposes, but conservatives didn't care.
It's not that we disagree with those premises to begin with, gosh, no.
I appreciate that in your kindness you apparently don't think us monsters, but you have a tendency of attributing to us monstrous positions.
"It's worth noting that every one of these distortions conforms with the stereotype that liberals see conservatives as evil."
Perhaps, except that I don't believe I've ever made those distortions. I believe as you stated (that war will deliberately kill innocents, that this was a pre-emptive war and an uncalled for war, etc), but I don't know that I've ever ascribed those thoughts to "conservatives." (With the exception of the Pre-emptive war. I think this is pretty universally accepted that this was a pre-emptive war - Bush has called it that.)
I have pointed out that conservatives are oftentimes acting in a way they think right. I have just questioned their assumptions.
So I believe you're ascribing to me something that I've not said. I repeat (as I have said before): I don't tend to think conservatives are evil people. I believe they're endorsing evil actions (that is, actions I think are obviously evil - I don't think the war-supporters who self-identify as "conservative" think that).
I'll assume that Salty Saints is humble pseudonym for Dan; I stand to be corrected.
I believe there's a distinction between how many conservatives and how many liberals use the word "pre-emptive." While it's true that we invaded Iraq to preempt the gathering threat of their WMD program, it is not true that we preempted them in the sense of throwing the first punch: Iraq took care of that, first by invading Kuwait, then by repeatedly violating the cease-fire agreement that ended the resulting war.
But I wonder how it is you reconcile your belief that conservatives don't support actions that we believe are evil with your belief that those actions are "obviously" evil.
If there's some disagreement on that point, to the tune of roughly half the nation disagreeing with you, how is it obvious?
In not accurately presenting the conservative positions on foreign policy and climate change, you do seem to imply that we recognize that our positions are "obviously" evil and that we embrace those positions anyway.
I think it fairly obvious to half the nation that our actions are wrong, evil or just plain stupid and ill-advised. I think it's NOT fairly obvious to the other half of the nation.
I generally agree with the Mary Wollstonecraft quote, "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks."
That is why classic conservatism is opposed to military adventurism, because we easily deceive ourselves in our fallen nature. This is why I think it prudent and conservative to only engage in war as a truly last resort as a matter of defense.
After all, the terrorists don't think they're doing evil, either. They think it wise and good to stop the great satan.
They believe, along with the Bushes of the world, that there are some circumstances and times when it is appropriate to take action that will result in the loss of innocent lives.
In that respect, the casual war supporter and the terrorist are united in philosophy - it's just a matter of degree (ie, the terrorists will deliberately kill innocents while many war-supporters are okay with the loss of innocent lives only if it's not deliberately planned or if it's what they consider a "desperate" situation, as in Hiroshima).
But now I'm getting afield from my original post. Anyway, I hope that clarifies my position: I've never said that the Bushies of the world (I don't like calling them "conservatives," because I don't really think they are) are choosing to do evil for the sake of evil, instead I've repeatedly said that they think (as do the terrorists) they are doing a Good thing.
I just think they're wrong and, in the case of Iraq, I think a goodly percentage of the US and the world agree.
And yes, I used the Salty Saints log in by mistake.
"In not accurately presenting the conservative positions on foreign policy and climate change"
I don't know that I usually present the other's position, I state mine and why I disagree with theirs. When I DO try to present their side, I have tended to point out how they are doing what they think is right.
Again, I'll have to say that you're misrepresenting my position unless you can offer something to support your point.
Dan:"I reckon you'd reject the notion of my being a conservative, but a final surprise to you may be to know that, unless I'm mistaken, Eleutheros considers himself a conservative in the same classical sense that I do."
That would be correct. I am a consrevative. What I am NOT is a globalist so I part ways sharply with GW and evangelists on that basis.
Since we are endeavoring to surprise you, Bubba, it might interest you that I agree that a country needs to be bound by a common language and I am opposed to open immigration. I have no hispanophobia. I speak Spanish and so am not in the least alarmed at hearing it all around me (as I do). I very much like the Mexicans who live around here in large numbers. But open immigration is bad for any country and we will soon or late pay a heavy price for it.
In clarification of the conservative position I am demeaning, those (and I believe it is most) consrvatives don't want open immigration but openly state that IF the hispanics are going to stay here and be considered for worker status or citizenship, they should abandon their hispanic ways and be more 'merican. I'm not threatened by Spanish, Mariachi music, cabrito cuisine, Catholocism, Santeria, and any such so I disagree with that sentiment.
I don't have to agree with every aspect of conservativism to be a conservative. I have, for example, watched the war thinking that sooner or later I'd see a rhyme and reason, a plan unfolding. Here late in the day I see none. I doubt there is one. If we define conservativism as support of the war, the ranks of conservatives is going to get mighty thin e're long.
You, Bubba, correct me if I'm wrong, want everyone in the world to say 'for Jesus', that is, to become a fundametalist Christian.
My take on Michael and Dan, although I do mostly disagree with them and don't respect their modus operendi, my take is that if someone said, "Sure, I'll feed and clothe the poor, but I am going to do it in the name of Krishna, or Babalau, or their ancestors, or the Devil for that matter....." I think they'd laud that as doing God's will even if not in God's name.
Eleutheros, I honestly am not surprised you oppose an open border, and you're not the first person I've seen who assumes bad motives to people who agree with him but happen to dwell somewhere else on the political or philosophical spectrum.
I don't think conservatism requires support of the war in Iraq or even support of the way the current administration is handling it. I for one think they have been -- at the very least -- abyssmal in the responsibility of repeatedly explaining the war's justification and our current strategies. I would also say that we probably should have focused on economic freedom for Iraqis before political freedom, that we should be doing more than simply trying to avoid losing, that we ought to discourage Iran and Syria from sending in combatants to fight us, and that Bush's increasing lack of strong leadership is making more likely our facing our own "Munich Agreement" with Iran.
Conservatism isn't defined by support for the war, nor are the two mutually exclusive.
You, Bubba, correct me if I'm wrong, want everyone in the world to say 'for Jesus', that is, to become a fundametalist Christian.
A) I don't know how you define fundamentalist.
B) It's not what I want but what I believe God has commanded me to do. If we were going strictly by what I want, I would say that a universalism that precludes evangelism would be more convenient and socially expedient.
My take on Michael and Dan, although I do mostly disagree with them and don't respect their modus operendi, my take is that if someone said, "Sure, I'll feed and clothe the poor, but I am going to do it in the name of Krishna, or Babalau, or their ancestors, or the Devil for that matter....." I think they'd laud that as doing God's will even if not in God's name.
As would I: giving a hungry man a loaf of bread is a part of God's will, but not the whole of it.
If we are all called to love our neighbors, and if I have both a loaf of bread and knowledge of the Bread of Life, I believe I have a duty to offer both to whoever needs it, the spiritually hungry as well as the biologically hungry: to offer, but not to compel.
As I've explained my position on evangelism, perhaps you could tell me why you think it morally deficient.
"If so -- if you don't support policies that would demonstrably and literally eliminate all auto fatalities at least of innocent lives -- you support policies that will result in the loss of innocent lives."
Actually, I'm quite opposed to our current road policies precisely because of the high costs in human lives (deaths, maimings, devastated families, orphaned chidren, etc), in actual dollars (according to one KY State Police report, costing ~$25 billion a year in Kentucky alone! - and that's mostly from the deaths and time lost from injuries, not even beginning to factor in environmental damage costs) and in harm to our environment.
Read some of what I've written about that, if you'd like:
Car Invention
Hitler's Bakery
Bubba:"I wonder if we'll see another explanation for why Dan isn't going to call El on his demagoguery."
For it to be demagoguery it would first have to be untrue, or at least baseless. Otherwise you are engaging in a sort of reverse Political Correctness (that is, 'Gasp, you can't actually SAY that even if it is painfully obvious and true.")
I talk mainly to convservative people in my day to day goings on simply because here abouts that's what we have plenty of. I read a lot of commentaries and listen to conservative talk radio while I'm working. I have heard the spiel about Americanizing hispanics many, many, many times. Not once from any conservative have I heard, "Why, isn't it nice to have those Tiendas around and it's wonderful how the hispanic folk look out after one another. I think I'll have some cabrito and learn some Spanish."
I don't buy the PC you can't say that when the liberals try to pull it and I certainly don't buy it from conservatives either.
¿Los conservativos quierren decir que los latinos ya son Americanos equal como todos? Bueno. Escucho. Pero no oigo nada.
Bubba:"As I've explained my position on evangelism, perhaps you could tell me why you think it morally deficient."
You have, says I, the prerogative to tell anyone in the world your story. Countries that prohibit the free exchange of any ideas (such as the modern Muslim countries where Christian evangelism is illegal) are morally weak.
But only to tell it. Evangelists in my opinion are like telemarketers, you have a right to speak but I don't have an obligation to listen. No is no.
But when in the mind of the evangelist it goes beyond a sort of cosmic telemarketing and enters the 'burning building' stage, it becomes morally deficient.
For those not familiar with the 'burning building' ploy, fundamentalist evangelists believe their own hype so completely that they see everyone as being in immediate and fatal spiritual danger, sort of like someone in a burning building. If you pleaded with someone to get out of the burning building but they didn't believe that it was burning, you would be justified in forceably removing them for their own good. Not only justified, but morality demands it.
When the evangelist adopts the burning building stance, then all sorts of things become morally justified if not morally obligatory. It's the right thing to pass Christian Taliban laws, interfer with a woman's reproductive privacy, force Christian writings in courthouses, force prayer in government schools, and all sorts of curtailing people's liberty and self determination because, after all, you are in a burning building and anything you do to drag them out of it, even against their will, is justified.
Dan, any analysis of the net effect of automobiles on our society must account for the lives saved as well as the lives lost, and automobiles do save lives insofar as they are used as ambulances.
But even granting the premise that the cost of automobiles on society isn't worth the benefits, every social arrangement involves similar tradeoffs. Are you naive enough to believe that accidental deaths never, ever, ever occur in the supposed utopias of Amish and Mennonite communities?
As every social structure inevitably leads to accidental deaths of innocent human lifes, whatever structure you support results in the death of innocent human life. By the logic you used above, comparisons between you and terrorists can be made.
(I made a similar point, repeatedly, in our earlier discussions about war. If the death of innocent lives -- regardless of whether that death was deliberate or accidental -- is the standard for whether an act is immoral, then even soup kitchens are immoral. Have a soup kitchen long enough, and inevitably someone will die, either from accidental food poisoning or from an allergy someone didn't know he had. It seems to me that you're committed to a standard because it condemns the Bush Administration as morally equivalent to terrorists but you have not yet seriously considered the logical consequences of that standard.)
Eleutheros:
Not once from any conservative have I heard, "Why, isn't it nice to have those Tiendas around and it's wonderful how the hispanic folk look out after one another. I think I'll have some cabrito and learn some Spanish."
The absence of such statements doesn't justify your attributing to those conservatives racist beliefs and slurs about "darkies."
Indeed, it isn't demagoguery if it's true, but the case you've made that your criticism is accurate is hardly persuasive.
And since I made explict my belief that evangelism must not be compulsory, I still don't know why you think my beliefs are morally deficient.
Perhaps you don't, perhaps you grant that it's morally permissible to hold a belief in evangelism that persuades but steadfastly refrains from coercion.
If that's so, your criticism of evangelism is probably less precise than it ought to be. Your complaints about Conquistators and jihadists are complaints about coercive evangelism, not evangelism in all forms.
We're straying off topic, but just for giggles:
"any analysis of the net effect of automobiles on our society must account for the lives saved as well as the lives lost, and automobiles do save lives insofar as they are used as ambulances."
I've not said anything about banning all autos. I'm talking about personal and societal responsibility in the face of great costs and tragedy.
Suppose, for instance, that we enforced a strict 15-25 mph speed limit in every residential neighborhood, and further suppose that this would reduce the number of dead and the costs associated with wrecks by 80%. In what way would that cost anything other than time and convenience?
If that one step reduced the costs associated with car wrecks by even 50% - with no other repercussions than lost time, would you support that as a matter of personal and societal responsibility?
[And, just so no one goes there, I've not said anything about removing ambulances or police cars from the road.]
True, you've "not said anything about removing ambulances or police cars from the road," but you have complained about the costs of roadway construction. You perhaps want to remove the road from under the ambulance?
You ask whether I would support certain strict speed limits if they reduced fatalities by a certain percentage. (The raw numbers probably matter, too.) You ask, perhaps rhetorically, "In what way would that cost anything other than time and convenience?"
Since we don't live forever, in what is time a trivial cost? If it is a trivial cost, why not propose a speed limit of 2 or 3 MPH instead of 15 or 25?
You ask, "would you support that as a matter of personal and societal responsibility?"
Couldn't the same question be asked for a single-digit speed limit? In either situation, opposition to the law isn't necessarily a denial of personal and societal responsibilities but may rather be a recognition that there is a tension between rights and responsibilities and tradeoffs must be made between the two.
Would I propose the particular measure above? Possibly -- particularly if it were a local proposal since I do not believe the federal government has the enumerated power to regulate residential speed limits.
But the way you frame this measure could be applied to utterly ridiculous measures, too. Authoritarian busybodies can justify any old law whose cost is merely time and convenience, as a matter of personal and societal responsibility.
And if the cost were privacy instead of time, I wonder if you would be so quick to disregard that cost. Or would you begin talking about the danger of giving up liberty for safety?
The fact is, we cannot possibly have a free society in which accidental death is impossible, and we cannot possibly wage war in which civilian casualities are non-existent. But that's not prima facie proof that freedom ought not be pursued and that war ought not to be considered under any circumstances.
As an aside, one reason I oppose socialized medicine is that it opens a door for intrusive legislation, a door you hint at when you mention, as you did here, the associated healthcare costs of the automobile.
If those costs are defrayed by the government, the government has a more plausible argument for its regulating our behavior -- not just how fast we drive but also the food we eat and whether we exercise. Government is already plenty big.
I should perhaps bid adieu for the weekend by noting that this discussion has strayed, but not as much as you might think. There are people making arguments very similar to yours in order to remake society -- by force of law -- to fit Berry's ideals.
Those who do so do not conform to Kirk's principles of conservatism, neither the principle of prudence in giving government so much power, nor the principle of imperfectibility that eschews utopianism, neither the opposition to collectivism nor the perceived need for a restraint against power.
But, much more important than this, it's hard to see how the agrarianism and localism of Wendell Berry are not a poor replacement for the priorities of Jesus Christ.
Is it that Berry restates the Sermon on the Mount "for a new group of people in a new set of circumstances"? I really don't think he does, and given that you're reviewing the sermon, I'm disappointed that you seem to disagree.
Alongside both Christian libertarians and Christian Marxists, Christian agrarians would do well to remember that Christ's kingdom is not of this world.
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