day no. 17,396: the truth will not wear out, but it will wear out its opposition

"The idea of a privatized truth, or private religion, is not simply an error. It is nonsense. If your idea of the First Amendment is that everybody in the country has the ability to retreat into their own private truth zones, then your time would be better spent in sweeping water uphill."  — Douglas Wilson, Creationism, the American Founding, and Individual Rights

Truth is either public information or it isn't truth. There is no such thing as a private truth. The problem is not that the truth is being kept secret, the problem is that the truth is out in the open, but not practiced or believed openly. The game is given away, but no one wants to play by the rules. They choose to ignore the truth because the lies make it easier to be unfaithful. They choose to twist the truth because it is beginning to strike to close to home and they want to redirect its heart. They slander the truth because they want the benefits of being truthful without any of the responsibilities of having to be honest.

“The modern habit of saying ‘Every man has a different philosophy; this is my philosophy and it suits me’; the habit of saying this is mere weak-mindedness. A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon” — G.K. Chesterton

The truth is too big to be privatized. It is either available to the public or it isn't the truth. That does not mean that some do not lie or that some attempt to codify a lie into public discourse as a generally accepted truth. On the contrary, it guarantees that people will attempt to do things like that. Why? Because the truth would proclaim itself if they didn't. They have to invest time, energy, thought, and plot into attempting to cover up the truth. It would be obvious to all if they didn't. And it still will be once they are worn out in attempting to cover it. That beach ball of truth they are working so hard to keep under water will outlast them. It will surface when they are tired and sunk.

Romans 1:18

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Those who suppress the truth do so in unrighteousness. They wear themselves out trying to keep it under wraps only to be overcome by it in the end. The truth will never stop pushing against the unrighteous arms of wicked men. It will float to the top for everyone to see when the wicked hands that held it down have long been drown in the sea of their willful ignorance.

day no. 17,395: inalienable rights and alienable privileges

"Creationists believe in inalienable rights. Atheists believe in alienable privileges." — Douglas Wilson, Creationism, the American Founding, and Individual Rights

Those who confess God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, confirm the imago Dei and the rights that go along with it. Those who reject their Maker reject the idea of rights coming from anywhere other than outside the individual. Granted, a creationist believes his rights come from without as well, but that is because he believes in God above who has given him rights within by making him in His image. The atheist believes his rights come from the state and can be placed within anyone or taken away from someone at any given moment. Rights, in the eyes of an atheist, are not a stable thing like the stars, they are unstable like the planets, always moving around.

Christians believe in rights because God is charitable and immutable. Atheists believe in privileges because power is their only language. Tyrants can give privileges to those they like and withhold them from those they don't. Kings under Christ must respect and defends the rights of those they do not like merely because those people happen to live under their jurisdiction.

Rights must be respected by all. Privileges must be withheld from some. And so, Christians and pagans view their governing representatives very differently.

day no.17,394: education and transmission

“Education is only truth in a state of transmission.” — G.K. Chesterton

Education is the way truth is passed on from one generation to the next. Or, at least it should be. It is always performed under the auspices of doing so, even when the truth being transmitted is candy-coated lies. Education always presupposes itself to be leading its pupils toward some greater end. It assumes on the front end something the student needs and doesn't have as well as the teacher having both it and the ability to relay it. 

Education, then, is always, an attempt to communicate something that is received as the truth, even when that something is a lie. It may be known to be a lie or it may be believed to be true, but it is taught a though it were Gospel truth and required to be believed with as much passion as an altar call. Please come to the front of the class and testify to what you have seen and heard and now believe to be true. That is the nature of religion and education and that is because education is always religious and religion is always educational/covenantal. It always involves generations, information, transformation, justification, and sanctification. 

Schools and churches both concern themselves with feeding the sheep. The schools like to think of them as little lambs and the churches like to think of them as flocks of sheep, but both view their people as theirs and look to give them what they believe is best for them.

day no. 17,393: big league chew

"Some acknowledge that some women are ahead of some men, but then attribute this to the men concerned not actualizing their full potential. But I believe that there are men who are maxed out, and are still behind some women. This is because some women were created to be helpers to men who are way above average." — Douglas Wilson, Late May Letters Late in May

There are some women who are out of some men's leagues. There are men who are maxed out and would still be a step down for some women to submit to. She could humble herself and submit to him, but she could not submit to him without descending to his level. 

To be fair, the same can be said for men. There are some men who are out of some women's leagues. There are some women who are maxed out and would still be a step down for some men to lead. He could go slower in order to lead her, but he could not lead her without hamstringing himself to do so.

Some men are better men than others and so it stands to reason that better men need better helpers. That said, no man should need so much help as to need a helper merely to be a man. That man does not need a woman, he needs Jesus. God gave Adam a wife, not a mom. God gives boys a mom, but if they do not grow up, they should not look for another one. A man must leave his father and mother in order to cleave to a wife. She cannot be another mother, she must be a helper and a lover.

day no. 17,392: wicked representation (but i repeat myself)

“For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.” — G.K. Chesterton, On the Cryptic and the Elliptic from All Things Considered

There once was a time where politicians felt the need to limit the number of skeletons in their closet in order to run for and stay in office. Those days, unfortunately, are behind us. In Chesterton's day (circa early 1900s), politicians were boring enough to be out of the headlines completely. Nowadays, politicians feel no pressure to behave. Whether it is due to a long track record of getting away with it or whether it is due to society no longer demanding more from their representatives, politicians do what they want without consequence. In that sense, perhaps more so than ever, our representatives represent us well. We elect what we deserve. 

“When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers." — John Calvin

Wicked men choose wicked men to represent them. God judges wicked people by giving them over to oppressive rulers and He also judges them by convincing them that wicked men are the best men to represent them.

“And ye, O peoples, to whom God gave the liberty to choose your own magistrates, see to it, that ye do not forfeit this favor, by electing to the positions of highest honor, rascals and enemies of God.” — Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism

Good people must manfully resist the temptation to vote for scoundrels. They must demand better of those who represent them. They must insist on a certain level of decorum. In the meantime, we may have to settle for Jehus in lieu of Josiahs. But we won't get Josiahs until we demand them.

“In any successful attack on freedom the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the citizen who forgets his duty, wastes away his strength in the sleep of sin and sensual pleasure, and so loses the power of his own initiative.” — Abraham Kuyper

In a representative government, the state may grow and swell to a wicked size, but not without the consent of the governed. The more we demand special treatment, the more we vote for wicked measures to ensure them. We vote away the rights of our neighbors in order to secure the property of our neighbors. But theft is theft, even if we vote on it and theft is theft, even if is the government who does it.

day no. 17,391: inflicting pleasure (and the threat of pain)

"Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.' In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

You can create blindness by turning the lights in the room off or by flooding the room with light. Orwell worried that Big Brother would have his finger on the off switch, Huxley worried that we would add more lights and get rid of the switch. Either way, distinction and differentiation are obliterated. Orwell imagined a society starved for meaning whereas Huxley imagined a society so full of crap that it could not fit a bite of meaning into it. Orwell assumed the tyranny would come from without, Huxley predicted the tyranny would come from within. Orwell imagined the threat of pain would be the best weapon whereas Huxley's imaginative powers wielded pleasure. The one was the desire for satisfaction and the other was the burden of over saturation. 

day no. 17,390: the first shall be sassed

Proverbs 18:17

The one who states his case first seems right, 

until the other comes and examines him.

The one who quotes Proverbs 18:17 first seems to have the moral high ground...