Saturday, August 27, 2011

On taking the wrong philosophy as your guiding principle

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.  (Robert A Heinlein)

Now I doubt many of our religious feminist friends actually read Heinlein and have consciously taken him as their prophet, but it's hard to deny they have a great affinity for this same philosophy.  Even the gentlest answer, which a wise man once told us would turn away wrath, elicits cries of "Tyranny!" from the feminist faction, as CBMWs new President learned this week.  Goodness, even a simply statement regarding normal human physiology is seen as the marginalization and illegitimate labeling of others.

The wise man also told us not to answer a fool according to his folly.  Chapter 26 of Proverbs is a series of short instructions on choosing the correct weapon.  You do not answer a fool according to his folly any more than you use a horse bridle on a pig.  And while religious feminists may store up a good deal of wrath, the wrath isn't the problem.  Their wrath is only the catalyst that speeds up the rebellion/reaction.  It starts out calmly and rationally, and for those who are not affirmed in their rebellion against he Word, anger, wrath, even rage enter the picture to act as catalysts -- ensuring the rebellion continues.

But for those for whom the catalyst is removed, with God's help, the reaction slows and even ends.  When that happens, the distortions caused by the accelerating reaction disappear and things can be seen more clearly.  What had been seen as oppression and tyranny becomes known as protection, the blessing and discipline of pastoral care that frees one to play on the plateau of Christian orthodoxy without cowering in the middle because you fear the cliff edge. 

Fences turn out to be not so "oppressive" after all.

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