This article is interesting in two respects:
1. It explores the link between bad theology and bad behavior.
2. It dovetails with Dreher’s column on Sunday which notes what happens when you elevate human reason or feelings as your authority over scripture (conservative Protestantism) or the Church (Catholicism).
I enjoyed this conversation between Bret Stephens and Gail Collins. They saved the best for last when Stephens spoke of an emerging Party of Sanity and used Chas’ line about there still being 10 good men left in …
Who knows what Corker is really up to. I’ve got my own battles with the TN Dept of Revenue this morning, so I’m not going to throw him a life preserver. Let them duke it out. Although Trump overstates it (when does he not), he may be right that Corker would have some problems getting re-elected. So maybe it’s just as well Corker is retiring. Marsha Blackburn has a good shot at the Senate seat, and will probably work with most of the Trump agenda.
I can’t connect Barth’s situation to anything.
Barth was committing adultery if I read that correctly.
That reflects of Barth, the man.
It has nothing to do with his theology. It’s either correct or not.
I have not followed Barth so I can’t comment on that.
Chas, In Barth’s letters he defended his continual adultery based on his “feeling” that it was right. Although Barth is celebrated by some as being more conservative than his liberal teachers, he rejected the authority of scripture in favor of feelings. That is the same bad theology that dominates modern America.
Debra, Although I heard this morning that there was polling that suggests otherwise, I tend to agree with you that Corker would struggle to be reelected. He has attacked The Cult and its naked emperor.
Chas, a person can still sin with the most perfect theology, but a decades-long adultery does suggest theological error, and in general theological error is more likely to lead to sin . . . look, for instance, at the theological error that says homosexual activity is not a sin, or the theological error that says fornication is a sin, kind of, but not a very serious one (not taking the holiness of God seriously enough). Orthodoxy is more likely to lead to orthopraxy than is doctrinal error.
Tychicus @1:11, that is very disturbing. But unless someone puts it in a nasty tweet that makes Trump look like he has egg all over his face, we’re determined not to be interested. :–/
Ricky @ 9:39 I read that somewhere the other day, I believe it was Reuters. Xi was saying they’re going to make China more socialist and will not allow other countries to set policies or follow the policies of other countries. And also that they are putting official party members back on the boards of the companies operating in China.
The US used to be independent, but we sold our national soul so we could pretend we rule the world, only to end up being owned by it. No constitutional amendment is needed to be a debt slave, just let Globalists lead and that’s where it ends.
This is what the Trump administration has inherited.
“Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, announced Tuesday he would not run for re-election in 2018, condemning in a speech aimed at President Donald Trump the “flagrant disregard of truth and decency” Flake says is undermining American democracy.
“There are times we must risk our careers,” Flake said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Now is such a time.”
Flake, who has criticized the path that the Republican Party has taken under Trump, said the impulse “to threaten and scapegoat” could turn America and the GOP into a “fearful, backward-looking people” and a “fearful, backward- looking party.” Flake didn’t mention Trump by name, but clearly was directing his remarks at the president and his administration.”
——————–
Despite Flake’s whining to the contrary, the real reason is he knows he can’t win. Due of course to all those dang backward votin’ hillbillies he mentioned. Silly Hillbillies, expecting him to do their bidding instead of the moneyed overlords who really control his party. The nerve…..
“Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake is in trouble from all sides. With a dismal approval rating of 18 percent, he faces a primary challenge from former state Sen. Kelli Ward. At the federal level, President Trump torched Flake for being weak on borders, crime, and being a “non-factor” in the Senate. The president also called him toxic. In July, the Arizona senator’s vulnerabilities were highlighted by FiveThirtyEight, where the publication said it might not be a bad investment for Democrats to find someone to run against Flake since the state is shifting left, he’s never been popular, and he barely won in 2012.
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is unpopular — really unpopular. According to a poll about all 100 senators released Tuesday by Morning Consult, just 37 percent of registered voters in Arizona approve of their junior senator, compared with 45 percent who disapprove.
[…]
The polling firm [Morning Consult] has consistently had Flake’s approval ratings at lower levels than those of many other senators. Other surveys have also generally found Flake to have a relatively low approval rating. Flake even commented on one of the surveys in 2013, saying: “Given the public’s dim view of Congress in general, that probably puts me somewhere just below pond scum.”
[…]”
“China says foreign firms welcome benefits from internal Communist Party cells”. Uhmmmm, yeah, sure, you can have a seat in the board room—noooo problem:
Foreign companies in China have welcomed the ruling Communist Party to set up cells in their firms, a senior official said on Thursday, though some executives have expressed concern about the party’s growing role in their operations…..
In July, executives from more than a dozen top European companies in China met in Beijing to discuss their concerns about the growing role of the party in their local operations, Reuters reported.
One senior executive whose company was represented at the meeting told Reuters some firms were under “political pressure” to revise terms of their joint ventures with state-owned partners to allow the party the final say over business operations and investment decisions.
The executive declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
But Supervision Minister Yang Xiaodu, who is also a deputy at the party’s graft-busting Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said a U.S. executive had told him that his best workers were party members.
Debra @ 3:46 Presidents generally get to set the agenda. That means if Tychicus was the president, the press (and the rest of us) would probably talking about the Russian bribery story today. Unfortunately, Tychicus is not the president. The actual president began his day with five Tweets against Corker which were filled with misspellings (including Tennessee), random capitalizations and lies. The biggest lie was that Corker had expressed opposition to the tax bill the president is supposedly trying to get passed.
Only one person posts “nasty Tweets that make Trump look like he has egg on his face”, and we all know the identity of that person.
“Democrats and the left have been attempting a soft coup on the Trump presidency since election day. One of the key factors in this attempt to unseat a duly-elected president was the now infamous and thoroughly-debunked “Trump dossier” that falsely alleged Trump connections to, even collusion with, Russia.
This document, it is now being reported, was funded by the Clinton campaign and by the DNC, then led by disgraced former DNC chair Debbie Wassermann-Schultz.
The Washington Post reports:
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.
Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community.
Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Prior to that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law firm continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.
“House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) have announced an investigation into the handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal by the FBI and Department of Justice. The two committees will also investigate why the FBI didn’t announce its investigation into then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign associates. From The Washington Examiner:
The probe will be conducted by two congressional panels responsible for overseeing the Justice Department and government operations in general. The investigators will review then-FBI Director James Comey’s various decisions pertaining to the Clinton investigation, such as his unusual announcement that she should not face indictment.
But they will also review whether the Justice Department erred in its handling of investigations pertinent to President Trump’s campaign.
“Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight and Government Reform Chair Trey Gowdy said in a joint statement. “Those scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness.””
“PragerU, an online purveyor of educational videos run by its namesake, Dennis Prager, filed a complaint against Google and YouTube Monday. The complaint alleges unlawful censorship and discrimination of first amendment rights.
YouTube, which is a subsidiary of Google, has on numerous occasions censored PragerU videos. Often, restricted or demonetized videos aren’t even what most would consider controversial subject matter, but offers opinions from a conservative point of view. “Why America Must Lead,” “The Ten Commandments: Do Not Murder,” “Why Did America Fight the Korean War,” and “The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians” have all been dinged by YouTube.
Just weeks ago, former Dirty Jobs host turned skilled worker spokesman was shocked to find a video he’d done in conjunction with PragerU had received the YouTube ban hammer. The video? “Don’t Follow Your Passion“.
“Is it possible that YouTube has determined that the IDEAS expressed in my speech are inappropriate for people under 18 – The precise audience that most needs to hear this message? The answer appears to be yes,” Rowe wrote on his public Facebook page.
Dennis Prager agrees:
“Watch any one of our videos and you’ll immediately realize that Google/YouTube censorship is entirely ideologically driven. For the record, our videos are presented by some of the finest minds in the Western world, including four Pulitzer Prize winners, former prime ministers, and professors from the most prestigious universities in America.
They are engaging in an arbitrary and capricious use of their ‘restricted mode’ and ‘demonetization’ to restrict non-left political thought. Their censorship is profoundly damaging because Google and YouTube own and control the largest forum for public participation in video-based speech in not only California, but the United States, and the world.”
“Google and YouTube use restricted mode filtering not to protect younger or sensitive viewers from ‘inappropriate’ video content, but as a political gag mechanism to silence PragerU. Google and YouTube do this not because they have identified video content that violates their guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate for younger viewers, but because PragerU is a conservative nonprofit organization that is associated with and espouses the views of leading conservative speakers and scholars,” said Eric George of Browne George Ross, the firm representing PragerU.”
AJ @ 8:05, Are you sure we should believe that piece? The Fake News Washington Post broke the story.
Seriously, in the last couple of days we have heard that Mueller found evidence incriminating Democrats and now the WP has broken a major investigative story favorable to Trump.
As I have said before:
1. Mueller is a fine public servant trying to do his job as Trump and his cultists squeal;
2. The Washington Post has a liberal bias, but does high quality reporting and is much, much more believable that the ignorant, dishonest Trump and his mindless minions.
Not only is it a Washington Post story, but it used anonymous sources! We all remember what The Trump Cult has told us about those anonymous sources. We have been told never to believe them as they are completely unreliable and serve only to confirm our existing biases.
Surely Hillary and the DNC will be Tweeting: “Fake News! Fake News!” No, I guess not. Only the Trump cultists fall for that nonsense.
Wandering Views 
This article is interesting in two respects:
1. It explores the link between bad theology and bad behavior.
2. It dovetails with Dreher’s column on Sunday which notes what happens when you elevate human reason or feelings as your authority over scripture (conservative Protestantism) or the Church (Catholicism).
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/october-web-only/what-to-make-of-karl-barths-steadfast-adultery.html?start=2
LikeLiked by 2 people
I enjoyed this conversation between Bret Stephens and Gail Collins. They saved the best for last when Stephens spoke of an emerging Party of Sanity and used Chas’ line about there still being 10 good men left in …
LikeLike
Dreher deals with the problem of Sunday morning sports for kids:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/sunday-sports-church-chariots-of-fire-minivans-apathy-benedict-option/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Debra, Your former mayor has come to the rescue of the Gold Star widow by drawing the fire of the lunatic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Who knows what Corker is really up to. I’ve got my own battles with the TN Dept of Revenue this morning, so I’m not going to throw him a life preserver. Let them duke it out. Although Trump overstates it (when does he not), he may be right that Corker would have some problems getting re-elected. So maybe it’s just as well Corker is retiring. Marsha Blackburn has a good shot at the Senate seat, and will probably work with most of the Trump agenda.
LikeLike
I can’t connect Barth’s situation to anything.
Barth was committing adultery if I read that correctly.
That reflects of Barth, the man.
It has nothing to do with his theology. It’s either correct or not.
I have not followed Barth so I can’t comment on that.
LikeLike
Chas, In Barth’s letters he defended his continual adultery based on his “feeling” that it was right. Although Barth is celebrated by some as being more conservative than his liberal teachers, he rejected the authority of scripture in favor of feelings. That is the same bad theology that dominates modern America.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Debra, Although I heard this morning that there was polling that suggests otherwise, I tend to agree with you that Corker would struggle to be reelected. He has attacked The Cult and its naked emperor.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You know this is going to make a certain person jealous. Expect a proposed new Constitutional Amendment from The Cult.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-constitution.html?_r=0&referer=
LikeLiked by 1 person
Chas, a person can still sin with the most perfect theology, but a decades-long adultery does suggest theological error, and in general theological error is more likely to lead to sin . . . look, for instance, at the theological error that says homosexual activity is not a sin, or the theological error that says fornication is a sin, kind of, but not a very serious one (not taking the holiness of God seriously enough). Orthodoxy is more likely to lead to orthopraxy than is doctrinal error.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The FBI investigated Russia and disclosed Russian bribery plots before the Obama admin approved the nuclear deal.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/355749-fbi-uncovered-russian-bribery-plot-before-obama-administration
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tychicus @1:11, that is very disturbing. But unless someone puts it in a nasty tweet that makes Trump look like he has egg all over his face, we’re determined not to be interested. :–/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ricky @ 9:39 I read that somewhere the other day, I believe it was Reuters. Xi was saying they’re going to make China more socialist and will not allow other countries to set policies or follow the policies of other countries. And also that they are putting official party members back on the boards of the companies operating in China.
The US used to be independent, but we sold our national soul so we could pretend we rule the world, only to end up being owned by it. No constitutional amendment is needed to be a debt slave, just let Globalists lead and that’s where it ends.
This is what the Trump administration has inherited.
LikeLike
Corker’s ducking out now rather than be embarrassed at the polls.
Just like this guy, and several more establishment guys in the House.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/arizona-gop-sen-flake-retire-had-tangled-trump-190716974–election.html
“Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, announced Tuesday he would not run for re-election in 2018, condemning in a speech aimed at President Donald Trump the “flagrant disregard of truth and decency” Flake says is undermining American democracy.
“There are times we must risk our careers,” Flake said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Now is such a time.”
Flake, who has criticized the path that the Republican Party has taken under Trump, said the impulse “to threaten and scapegoat” could turn America and the GOP into a “fearful, backward-looking people” and a “fearful, backward- looking party.” Flake didn’t mention Trump by name, but clearly was directing his remarks at the president and his administration.”
——————–
Despite Flake’s whining to the contrary, the real reason is he knows he can’t win. Due of course to all those dang backward votin’ hillbillies he mentioned. Silly Hillbillies, expecting him to do their bidding instead of the moneyed overlords who really control his party. The nerve…..
🙄
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/08/23/uh-oh-poll-has-sen-jeff-flake-trailing-gop-primary-challenger-by-14-points-n2371992
“Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake is in trouble from all sides. With a dismal approval rating of 18 percent, he faces a primary challenge from former state Sen. Kelli Ward. At the federal level, President Trump torched Flake for being weak on borders, crime, and being a “non-factor” in the Senate. The president also called him toxic. In July, the Arizona senator’s vulnerabilities were highlighted by FiveThirtyEight, where the publication said it might not be a bad investment for Democrats to find someone to run against Flake since the state is shifting left, he’s never been popular, and he barely won in 2012.
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is unpopular — really unpopular. According to a poll about all 100 senators released Tuesday by Morning Consult, just 37 percent of registered voters in Arizona approve of their junior senator, compared with 45 percent who disapprove.
[…]
The polling firm [Morning Consult] has consistently had Flake’s approval ratings at lower levels than those of many other senators. Other surveys have also generally found Flake to have a relatively low approval rating. Flake even commented on one of the surveys in 2013, saying: “Given the public’s dim view of Congress in general, that probably puts me somewhere just below pond scum.”
[…]”
LikeLike
“China says foreign firms welcome benefits from internal Communist Party cells”. Uhmmmm, yeah, sure, you can have a seat in the board room—noooo problem:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-companies/china-says-foreign-firms-welcome-benefits-from-internal-communist-party-cells-idUSKBN1CO0HQ
LikeLike
Debra @ 3:46 Presidents generally get to set the agenda. That means if Tychicus was the president, the press (and the rest of us) would probably talking about the Russian bribery story today. Unfortunately, Tychicus is not the president. The actual president began his day with five Tweets against Corker which were filled with misspellings (including Tennessee), random capitalizations and lies. The biggest lie was that Corker had expressed opposition to the tax bill the president is supposedly trying to get passed.
Only one person posts “nasty Tweets that make Trump look like he has egg on his face”, and we all know the identity of that person.
LikeLike
Jay Caruso on the importance of the incremental win:
https://twitter.com/jaycaruso/status/922962326474682368
LikeLike
Meanwhile, in the “real news that’s ignored because Trump tweeted something” category…..
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/10/report-clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-discredited-trump-dossier/#more-231155
“Democrats and the left have been attempting a soft coup on the Trump presidency since election day. One of the key factors in this attempt to unseat a duly-elected president was the now infamous and thoroughly-debunked “Trump dossier” that falsely alleged Trump connections to, even collusion with, Russia.
This document, it is now being reported, was funded by the Clinton campaign and by the DNC, then led by disgraced former DNC chair Debbie Wassermann-Schultz.
The Washington Post reports:
The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.
Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.
Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community.
Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Prior to that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.
The Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law firm continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.
This is huge. #*^& hitting the fan huge.”
=====================
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/10/house-will-investigate-fbi-doj-handling-of-hillary-email-scandal/
“House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) have announced an investigation into the handling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal by the FBI and Department of Justice. The two committees will also investigate why the FBI didn’t announce its investigation into then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign associates. From The Washington Examiner:
The probe will be conducted by two congressional panels responsible for overseeing the Justice Department and government operations in general. The investigators will review then-FBI Director James Comey’s various decisions pertaining to the Clinton investigation, such as his unusual announcement that she should not face indictment.
But they will also review whether the Justice Department erred in its handling of investigations pertinent to President Trump’s campaign.
“Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight and Government Reform Chair Trey Gowdy said in a joint statement. “Those scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness.””
LikeLike
Good.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/10/prageru-sues-google-and-youtube-claims-unlawful-censorship-and-discrimination/
“PragerU, an online purveyor of educational videos run by its namesake, Dennis Prager, filed a complaint against Google and YouTube Monday. The complaint alleges unlawful censorship and discrimination of first amendment rights.
YouTube, which is a subsidiary of Google, has on numerous occasions censored PragerU videos. Often, restricted or demonetized videos aren’t even what most would consider controversial subject matter, but offers opinions from a conservative point of view. “Why America Must Lead,” “The Ten Commandments: Do Not Murder,” “Why Did America Fight the Korean War,” and “The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians” have all been dinged by YouTube.
Just weeks ago, former Dirty Jobs host turned skilled worker spokesman was shocked to find a video he’d done in conjunction with PragerU had received the YouTube ban hammer. The video? “Don’t Follow Your Passion“.
“Is it possible that YouTube has determined that the IDEAS expressed in my speech are inappropriate for people under 18 – The precise audience that most needs to hear this message? The answer appears to be yes,” Rowe wrote on his public Facebook page.
Dennis Prager agrees:
“Watch any one of our videos and you’ll immediately realize that Google/YouTube censorship is entirely ideologically driven. For the record, our videos are presented by some of the finest minds in the Western world, including four Pulitzer Prize winners, former prime ministers, and professors from the most prestigious universities in America.
They are engaging in an arbitrary and capricious use of their ‘restricted mode’ and ‘demonetization’ to restrict non-left political thought. Their censorship is profoundly damaging because Google and YouTube own and control the largest forum for public participation in video-based speech in not only California, but the United States, and the world.”
“Google and YouTube use restricted mode filtering not to protect younger or sensitive viewers from ‘inappropriate’ video content, but as a political gag mechanism to silence PragerU. Google and YouTube do this not because they have identified video content that violates their guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate for younger viewers, but because PragerU is a conservative nonprofit organization that is associated with and espouses the views of leading conservative speakers and scholars,” said Eric George of Browne George Ross, the firm representing PragerU.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is interesting and exactly what you would expect.
LikeLike
AJ @ 8:05, Are you sure we should believe that piece? The Fake News Washington Post broke the story.
Seriously, in the last couple of days we have heard that Mueller found evidence incriminating Democrats and now the WP has broken a major investigative story favorable to Trump.
As I have said before:
1. Mueller is a fine public servant trying to do his job as Trump and his cultists squeal;
2. The Washington Post has a liberal bias, but does high quality reporting and is much, much more believable that the ignorant, dishonest Trump and his mindless minions.
LikeLike
So here is the original story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_dossier-630pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.605f1e46e1fd
Not only is it a Washington Post story, but it used anonymous sources! We all remember what The Trump Cult has told us about those anonymous sources. We have been told never to believe them as they are completely unreliable and serve only to confirm our existing biases.
Surely Hillary and the DNC will be Tweeting: “Fake News! Fake News!” No, I guess not. Only the Trump cultists fall for that nonsense.
LikeLike
Congratulations on the win, DJ. Kershaw was impressive, and I didn’t realize y’all had a leprechaun on your team.
https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/10/24/16540842/world-series-results-score-dodgers-astros-game-1
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike