Hieronymus
3d ago
Yes, but Catherine was obviously lying. The kings of England and Aragon had scholars go through her first marriage with a fine-toothed comb looking for a reason to annul it so that Catherine could marry Henry and maintain the alliance. When they came back saying that the only way to annul the marriage was if it hadn’t been consummated, Catherine said that she had never slept with her husband. That’s not terribly plausible under the circumstances, and if it were true all of the canon lawyers would have been unnecessary in the first place.
The pope actually refused to annul her second marriage for political and military reasons.
Hieronymus
3d ago
… for not committing in the way she prefers.
Without the sexual revolution, there are expectations put on her too.
I agree that trying to roll back the sexual revolution by constraining men without constraining women is insane and unjust. Any workable attempt to do so would have to involve both sexes, unlike the “yes means yes” push.
Hieronymus
8d ago
Your point's a strong one, but I don't think your last sentence lands as the flourish you probably intended.
Hieronymus
10d ago
This is an excellent summary. I'd add that while dispensationalism is common among American evangelicals, it's losing ground.
Dispensationalists often frustrate me, but I wouldn't call them heretics unless they move beyond dispensationalism into dual covenant theology. Dual covenant theology holds that while gentiles are saved only through faith in Christ, Jews can be saved by keeping the Mosaic Law. Since this is approximately the least evangelical take it is possible to have, and since dispensationalism is an evangelical phenomenon to begin with, this is mercifully rare.
Hieronymus
11d ago
Christian understanding does not end at the Bible. Indeed the Bible says not to use itself that way (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
If you have another reliable record of apostolic teaching, you should listen to it. But you don't – both Rome and Constantinople have a history of backdating later innovations to ascribe apostolicity to them. Tradition can be useful, but to call it authoritative is an error.
Fortunately that's not needed here, because the Bible speaks to the issue. If Cruz gets it wrong, well, Cruz gets it wrong.
For non-Protestant Christians, having so many Protestants in political power is bemusing, frustrating, and sometimes terrifying.
I'd like to respond with some clever remark about Roman Catholics in power, but that'd be silly because, like Protestants, they are too varied a group to generalize about that way. As far as I'm aware of Eastern Orthodox politicians in traditionally Orthodox countries, they seem more driven by ethnic nationalism than by any particularly Christian concerns.
Hieronymus
12d ago
Close the loopholes and make it harder for Dem presidents to not enforce the law. Have more of their executive orders get shredded in the courts like DAPA did during Obama's tenure, and like a lot of Trump's EOs always do.
I don't think this is possible, either in principle or in practice. The president has wide discretion not to enforce laws for a variety of reasons. And federal judges, who are routinely blue tribe even when right-leaning, will mostly be looking for reasons to allow a Democratic or neocon Republican president to skip out on his side of the bargain.
We've tried things like this before, and the pro-illegal-immigration factions have successfully defected at the first opportunity. I don't see any reason for optimism that the compromise will be honored in an even more divided country.
Hieronymus
15d ago
Upvotes and downvotes really have no place on a political discussion site like this, as all they do is add unnecessary heat and a "boo outgroup" button for partisans to click. ... Forcefully ignoring the upvotes has made the site much more tranquil in my eyes.
That's a fair take and I respect it, but it's different than my experience. I am often surprised which of my posts get upvoted and which are controversial or unremarkable. I find the feedback kind of interesting, although I don't update on it much.
The mods on this site, while better than on many sites, are still pretty arbitrary and capricious. It's not uncommon for them to modhat leftists or centrists for things right-leaning commenters get away with all the time.
For any site above tiny the modding can never be perfectly even. I disagree with your judgment on balance, though I'm sure there are valid examples, and evaluating their salience is kind of subjective.
One thing I have noticed is that long-time quality contributers do sometimes get more slack than most. But I think this applies regardless of one's political and social positions. Darwin got at least as much slack as Hlynka did.
Maybe she'll return baptized and born again.
I've been unironically praying for that – except that I presume, given her childhood faith, she is already baptized.
I have two reasons in particular to wish her well. One is that, like most, I know people who have made the normie-tier mistakes of which she has made the epic-tier versions, and I pray for their repentance. The other is that when she is talking about her (sometimes very difficult) evangelical childhood, she makes an honest effort to be fair as she understands fairness.
If she repented of her sin, then reconciled to her father such that they forgave one another, I think that would justify making the world endure a little cringeposting for a while. I'm not holding my breath, but I am praying from time to time.
Hieronymus
17d ago
Surely we can deadname an influential rationalist court prostitute when her name has so much metaphorical import?
I don't care about "deadnaming." But unless she actually changed her name to Aella, I prefer the social norm that avoids casual and unnecessary doxxing.
Hieronymus
24d ago
Seventy year olds are fully capable of caring about the generations to come. Indeed, financially secure seventy year olds (which presumably describes the elderly in the political class) are among those best suited to think in generational terms. If they don't, that's a deep cultural problem, and electing younger folks may mitigate it but will not solve it.
Hieronymus
25d ago
both my Baptist friends and my Pentecostal cousin are drinking (alcohol) now
This is indeed much more common than it used to be, and I think it’s a spiritually healthier place for the church to be. I have little knowledge of how it’s gone inside the holiness movement, though.
and women in pastoral roles is becoming a commonplace belief and practice
This is sort of true but in a weird way. There used to be more of a middle ground for evangelicals to combine a mostly theologically conservative outlook with gender egalitarianism. But that middle ground has eroded heavily, as the gender egalitarian types usually went liberal in other ways over time, to the point that this has become a kind of unconscious expectation. The delay for public figures to go from supporting women in ministry to deconstructing is now shockingly brief. I know some folks who still try to occupy that middle ground, but few of them are younger than Gen X.
Hieronymus
25d ago
I had a somewhat different experience of the evangelical church growing up than you did, though I can see where you are coming from. I remain in the congregation where I grew up, a Baptist-adjacent Bible church in a blue state.
That tone has severely softened in recent years, as white Catholics have become the standard-bearers of the religious right in many ways, but there's a serious way in which the often harsh, but nevertheless informed critiques of more traditional forms of Christianity within historic Protestantism have been flanderized in evangelical circles to an absolute rejection of the Christianity of non-evangelical forms of faith -- indeed out of ignorance.
I’d say that our attitude toward Rome growing up was guarded, sometimes harsh, but not particularly uninformed; of course I have a deeper understanding of the critique as a middle-aged man than I did as a teenager, but that’s true of many things. We didn’t talk about the Eastern Orthodox much, but there weren’t a lot of them around. Our attitude toward middle- and even high-church Protestants was reasonably positive so long as they were strong on Scripture and held to sola fide.
I agree that the general evangelical attitude toward Rome is much less guarded today than it was. Opinions on Eastern Orthodoxy are pretty mixed, but the most common attitude is to regard them as eccentric Roman Catholics. (I will give you that this one is pretty uninformed.)
That said, evangelicalism has also been characterized by a firmer affirmation of conservative social doctrine than spiritual doctrine (I'm not saying spirituality isn't important to them -- I'm saying their emphasis, especially to people who grow distant, is often perceived to be culture war instead of spiritual development), and so leaving evangelicalism is often associated with leaving social conservatism.
I can’t speak to your experience, but in mine people who leave evangelical Christianity tend to move toward social liberalism first, then when this clashes with evangelical Christianity they abandon evangelicalism. It’s a commonplace that when a young man comes to his pastor and says, “I just can’t accept the truth of Christianity any longer,” the correct response is, “Who is she?” Also common today are people who want to accommodate their friends on LGBT issues and leave their evangelical churches when those hold fast to the biblical teaching.
To those leaving it may look like the church is prioritizing social issues over spiritual things. But striving after obedience to God’s will revealed in Scripture is fundamentally tied up in spiritual things. (“If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” and, “Faith without works is dead.”) You can be socially conservative without being an evangelical Christian, or a Christian at all, but it’s no coincidence that socially liberal churches also have a low view of the Bible.
(There is a smaller cohort that leaves evangelicalism directly for more liturgical churches. This is a different phenomenon, and most of them don’t think that evangelicals’ positions on social issues are too conservative.)
… and I'm simply reflecting on the market failure where the mainline Protestant churches that have already been there for a long time now aren't even considered as an option, and are themselves being out-competed by "woke evangelical" churches the same way the megachurch is out-competing the Bible church on the street corner!
I agree that this demand exists, but in my world it’s less than one might suppose. I expect that most “woke evangelical” churches will fade away in a generation or so as the children of their members abandon any connection to Christianity.
Hieronymus
26d ago
The political project of the last fifty years has skipped the "educate them on how to build a better life" part in favor of simple affirmation, partly out of a woeful misconstrual of what love is and partly because our societies have adopted increasingly hollow ideas of a better life.
That also draws into relief why she felt her religion was either/or — one characteristic of many non-denominationals is a general ignorance of forms of Christianity outside the evangelical orbit, so the concept of an institutional Christianity that is somewhat, well, woke would be unfamiliar.
I'm not sure it's ignorance so much as disinterest. If she's in the process of abandoning Christian conviction anyway, why seek out a woke church instead of the woke secular friends she already has? In my experience exvangelical men and women usually end up atheist, with a minority of women falling into witchcraft instead.
A drift toward wokeness that maintains the form of Christianity is much more likely when it happens at the congregational level and up.
Hieronymus
27d ago
This is my third draft of this comment. I am trying to figure out how to articulate this clearly and with a minimum of snark.
Your first paragraph is a 100% correct critique of 2rafa’s read of Barrett. But I think your second paragraph betrays a tendency common among Roman Catholics to read current practice back into history as always having been the practice of the church, and this is mistaken. Aquinas would not have accepted Catholic social teaching – the body which has evolved since the late 19th century – as it is now. Very few Roman Catholics, and perhaps no popes, before the twentieth century would have accepted the position on the death penalty now given in the Roman catechism.
I think that a great deal of Catholic social teaching as it now exists is the product of Western modernism. At its best it can include some genuinely countercultural Christian teaching. (As a Protestant, I particularly appreciated Rome’s stand against torture when everyone else seemed to be losing his mind.) But it is not above the fray or immune to secular influences, often to its detriment.
Hieronymus
27d ago
I wish that passage were given more weight, but I don't think it's that open-ended. It's most likely a reference to rights established by the English constitution as the authors understood it, with an emphasis on those in the Declaration of Right. It may also include some common-law rights.
If read in that light, I think it would have some radical implications. But it wouldn't establish a compelling interest test for each and every federal law.
Hieronymus
27d ago
Republicans have managed to get elected roughly half the time, so it seems like it's you who's trying to escape all accountability here. If you say they couldn't do anything because of progressive Republicans, well, maybe you should have won more elections.
These two sentences contradict one another.
Man, I think that men who pine for a virgin bride have caught a glimpse of the loveliness in the life you’ve described. I wish someone could explain the rest to them such that they could see the beauty of the whole package. Some secular men would be moved by it; many others would at least respect it. And it would strengthen the spines and zippers of Christian men and women alike.
I’m not the right person to do it. I’m not even sure what form it would take. But it would be a win for truth and beauty, to say nothing of the people involved.
Hieronymus
1mo ago
I hadn't seen this, so I wanted to read the statement. I found an ANC statement (not technically the government, I suppose) on reddit. I couldn't find it on the terribly-organized ANC website, but I could confirm its legitimacy by finding a copy on a regional ANC Twitter account.
And wow, it's even worse than you said:
Let it be categorically stated: there are no Afrikaner refugees in South Africa. No section of our society is hounded, persecuted or subject to ethnic victimisation. These claims are a fabrication and a cowardly political construct designed to delegitimise our democracy and insult the sacrifices made by generations who fought for freedom. ...
What the instigators of this falsehood seek is not safety, but impunity from transformation. They flee not from persecution, but from justice, equality and accountability for historic privilege.
The misuse of refugee protections to shield right-wing, anti-transformation elements is a violation of the spirit and letter of international law. ...
I am particularly struck by the phrase "impunity from transformation."
Hieronymus
1mo ago
These were public policies made by public health professionals. The public health professionals thought the vaccines reduced infection rates and that's why they set the policy the way they did.
They did believe this, but I also remember discussions about how privileges could incentivize vaccination. I think that was applied as an argument in both directions: It was a reason to allow vaccine passports rather than just keeping things closed altogether, and it was an argument for not loosening things up on those the speaker considered defectors against society.
Fortunately for me, my blue state tended to either open things up or close them rather than using a passport strategy, as I was both vaxxed and stubbornly opposed to proving it on principle.
Hieronymus
1mo ago
I am not a libertarian, and I am certainly no ancap. I have some very strong classical liberal leanings, but classical liberalism is not the summum bonum.
The family, as a classic example of natural duty, is one of the great weaknesses of a thoroughgoing, non-agression-principle–centered libertarianism. Libertarianism in its heart of hearts wants to divide the world into free agents and property; children are neither. They are both human and inescapably dependent. It is baked into the order of creation, and no one can will it away. They are not the only example, but they are by far the clearest.
Hieronymus
1mo ago
Perhaps I'm misreading you, but voluntary associations and state power aren't all there is. It's true that state power often tries to replace, or even actively attacks, voluntary associations. But it often acts the same way toward natural bonds which impose duty.
I'd argue that child support in 21st-century America is more often an effort to replace natural duty by state power than it is an effort to enforce that duty. But when the state does try to backstop natural (or even long-established social) institutions, it has the option to do so with a much lighter hand than when it tries to replace them.
Hieronymus
1mo ago
Last I checked, the highest rate of antidepressant usage by sex and profession was men working with small children, and it was more than twice the next item on the list.
I mean, have you ever tried throwing a toddler over your shoulder and spinning him around while he giggles? It's pretty great.
I can totally see how childcare at daycare scale with daycare constraints would grind me down. I also wonder how much the current rules are the way they are because they're written by and for women. And I'm also curious how much the depression you refer to is increased or decreased by selection effects.
Hieronymus
1mo ago
Sounds a bit like human sacrifice and scapegoating doesn't it?
Unironically yes. The Bible depicts it as a sacrifice: though those who killed Jesus didn’t intend it that way, Jesus did. And if you do a quick search, you will find a million sermons with titles like “Christ our Scapegoat,” referencing the literal scapegoat in Leviticus.
Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, offering himself as a sacrifice to God the Father on behalf of sinners is the mechanism. It’s the core of Christian belief.
That is a fair point.
Well, yeah. It was a misreading of Leviticus – if it were correct then levirate marriage, commanded to Jews in the same book, would make no sense. But it was a misreading that underlay canon law. And you can see why the issue would obsess him.
She'd certainly have understandable reasons for jealousy. And if she had originally felt that lying was a minor offense made as much for Henry's sake as for hers, it wouldn't be at all shocking if she refused to come clean so that he could look justified in betraying her.
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