For most of my life, I was not the Conservative I am now. I was anywhere from libertarian to kinda-liberal to proper liberal. In 2015 I was liberal enough to support Bernie Sanders. What happened?
1. ABORTION
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Abortion was really the wedge that opened up everything else. I never thought abortion was morally acceptable. I thought it was something that government shouldn't involve itself in beyond certain parameters. Granted that it was logically inconsistent to believe that abortion was immoral (hence by extension actually murder) and believing that it shouldn't be illegal like other murders. But I was skeptical enough of government power to make the case to myself that even if immoral, government shouldn't be involved or at least that legislation against it should be limited to certain parameters.
I remember very vividly many years ago visiting a tiny Catholic church in Eureka Springs, Arkansas that contained on its grounds a memorial to the unborn. This moved me very deeply and planted a seed in me, I think. Never be skeptical of even the smallest act of witness that comes from the heart, and this memorial was a witness to me.
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| Abortion memorial, St. Elizabeth's Church, Eureka Springs Arkansas |
Then came Facebook, and on it I interacted with "Christians" (Progressive Christians) who were not only willing to have the limited abortion prohibitions that were then law, but who believed in expanded abortion "rights." They did not believe that abortion was immoral but best tolerated. They affirmed abortion as a positive good.
This blew my mind. I had always assumed that ANY Christian who tolerated abortion, tolerated it as a very bad thing that it was nevertheless not worth it for government to outlaw completely. I viewed it a bit like Prohibition: its intentions were good, alcohol destroys countless lives, but it was never going to work and was going to encourage criminality. In this case presumably, outlawing abortion encourages illegal coat hangers.
But here were these "Christians," who did not think abortion was immoral. And here I was, with my reasoned if wrong approach to the problem, and I was unintentionally supporting the positions of people who believed that what was in my view fundamentally wrong was right. Murder is okay. Abortion is good.
When I re-evaluated my position on abortion, this opened the door to re-evaluating EVERYTHING I believed to see if it matches up to the Biblical view on things. And in a great many ways it did not.
2. THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS TO THE TANAKH (THE OLD TESTAMENT)
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I had first become a Christian I think in my late Thirties or maybe in my Forties. It was a very rocky relationship, characterized by a number of fits and starts. I had two main problems with Christianity: the idea that a man was G-d, and a problem with the Old Testament. The Old Testament, despite its very different outlook, is considered by Christians to also be holy writ along with the New Testament. What is relevant for the purpose of this post is the latter.
I admired the philosophy of Jesus. When I wanted to broaden my understanding though, I looked at the Old Testament and saw a dramatically different picture. Jesus said "do not resist an evil person." Here was the OT advocating the extreme opposite, that any evil MUST be resisted, violently in many cases. Jesus was a man of peace, and I liked peace.
The OT was a book of WAR. Whatever their points of connection and however often Jesus quoted it, the Old Testament and the New were fundamentally at odds.
Here was a looking glass universe, in which all my calm pacifistic expectations were upended. I actually believed for a time that the Old Testament was the product of a different religion and a different God, and that this OT God was not like my Jesus at all. I did not like the Old Testament one bit, and that was a problem, because the Jesus I did like quoted it all the time.
Nevertheless I persevered in my studies, hoping to find a resolution. In the process, I entered through the looking glass into the Old Testament and a different world, a world in conflict with the world that I and basically everybody lived in. A world of pluralism of thought. A world of tolerance.
The Tanakh is fundamentally intolerant. In the Torah (the first five books of the Tanakh,) evil is described in ways very similar to how we now think of disease. When you have gangrene in a finger, you do not spare the finger and risk the hand. You lop the finger off and pray that the infection stops there. Evil in the Tanakh is fundamentally regarded as a contagion, an infectious disease that will inevitably spread if not stopped cold. The Torah's prescient ideas about actual disease and quarantine (in an ancient world without germ theory) is telling. The Torah treats with real disease and spiritual disease both. Later prophets would not deal as much with actual disease, but spiritual disease is treated much the same way. A king of ancient Judah, Josiah, is praised in the book of Kings above all other kings, even David. Why? Because he destroyed the pagan shrines in Judah, desecrated their altars, and murdered their pagan priests. The prophet Elijah is depicted doing the same sorts of things.
In the view of the Tanakh, the thing to do with pagans is not invite them to speak at your churches as is so often the practice today. The thing to do with pagans is to kill them. Terminate, with extreme prejudice. Granted you should not take this too literally as a guide to how to behave these days, as neither Elijah nor Josiah were thrown in prison for their actions (though they certainly tried worse with Elijah.) Still, the principle is stated repeatedly: sweep out the evil amongst you. Do not let evil take root with the Jewish people. Of course it did anyway.
Fundamental also to the Tanakh is a very alien way of thinking these days: that one way, G-d's way, is right and all ways in contradiction to it are wrong. It's not just, like, your opinion man. G-d's way or the highway, and the highway is death or other very unpleasant consequences. Which, we have all in this culture subconsciously absorbed ethical relativism. The Tanakh expresses a different view: that THE ONE ONLY GOD told us what He wanted, what was right and what was wrong. And if THE ONE ONLY TRUE GOD tells you something, it is not up to debate. He is right and everyone else is wrong. And not only wrong, but actually malignant. Spiritually damaging to society.
As an American, I absorbed individualism in the cradle practically. Americans love individualism. It's a foundational ideal. What is hard to wrap your head around in the Tanakh initially is that it is not at all individualistic. As an American, thoughts and beliefs are considered morally neutral. You can be a Wiccan and be a good American; you can be a Baptist and a good American. Pluralism of thought is considered good. Do your own thing, think your own thoughts. Anyone who knows me would probably consider me the most individualistic of people. My mother used to say of me, "he marches to the beat of his own drummer."
What the Tanakh was saying was, thoughts and beliefs are not morally neutral. Your thoughts and beliefs affect everything and everyone around you. Nor are actions which superficially do not seem to affect other individuals morally neutral. From the point of view of the Tanakh, if you are committing sodomy with the same sex, you are not just affecting yourself and consenting adults. You are doing injury to the very fabric of society which depends on stable opposite-sex families to prosper. Like it or not, everyone is morally connected to everyone else, and it is this worldview that can be the hardest to assimilate. Through the looking glass, there are no victimless sins.
And believe me, I did not want to believe that this point of view was right. No less than Jacob, I fought with an angel over this. But I had to finally admit that G-d was right and I was wrong.
Something that is hard to convey to people who are not truly immersed in the worldview of the Tanakh is the deep love that is embedded in this worldview. Tremendous concern for the well being of not individuals but everyone. Excessive love for any one individual is not present; G-d is no respecter of persons. What G-d respects is the health, well-being and happiness of the whole of society. When one person detracts from that, they should be corrected or pruned from the tree. Which, if evil is like a contagious disease, is what you have to do. If your apple tree has one infected branch, you cut off the branch and save the tree.
The worldview of the Tanakh is profoundly, fundamentally different from the modern worldview and opposed to it. It can take a tremendous work of self- re-education to reorient yourself towards it, but with G-d's help you can. Today, the "modern world" is through the looking glass to me, alien and dark.
3. POLITICAL SKEPTICISM
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It is subconsciously accepted as a given that government is the answer to many problems. Despite all the problems it seems unable to solve. People as a whole do not disagree with using government as a hammer to solve whatever the ills are, they just disagree with whether the solution is good in that particular case.
Well, governments are run by humans, and what does the Tanakh tell us about humans?
"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?" ~Jeremiah 17:9
"The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." ~Psalm 14:2-4
Humans, even the best of us, are corrupt and sinful. The more power that a human is given, the greater his temptation to evil will be. Therefore a HUMAN solution to our problems is precisely NOT what is needed. We need THE divine solution, not human solutions. No one who truly believes what the Tanakh says about human nature can ever imagine the government as the cure to all ills.
Like most Americans, I was raised on the idea of government solutions. This is the malignancy of the current order: what is allowed to pass muster in one generation is bred into the next as a fait accompli. Just as, if the Woke agenda is allowed to pass unchallenged in this generation, it will become the default philosophy of the next. Just as "communism lite" was allowed to pass muster in previous generations and schools and churches, and became the default philosophy now. Remember the mindset of the Tanakh: evil is a contagion.
What this reliance on government solutions leads to is an even worse evolution of sin: idolatry of the State on a national scale. That government is the human-made god. Previous nations tried it: Hitler tried to extend his control over every aspect of life as did Stalin. In one, the Volk is god. In the other, humans are god. In both, the State is god.
Well despite their greater body count, they got nothing on us. The current cultural and ideological regime in the West practices Stateolatry no less than they do. The modern idolaters of the State just find better ways to put it into practice without arousing suspicion.
So while I hold to the view of the Tanakh, that ONE way is right, I do not view human governments as a worthy tool to putting that into practice. The best government then is the one that extends its hand the least and intrudes, robs, controls, steals and kills in our name the least. The problem is that while limited government works exceedingly well for a moral, spiritual and righteous population, in one that is not it turns into "nothing is true, everything is permitted." Because unrighteous people still look to government for their guide and their father. So if their guide and father allows it, it must be okay.
So I cannot countenance an activist government and I cannot say that a laissez-faire government will have beneficial results in an immoral population, because it won't. Ultimately the spiritual commitment of the population to covenant with the G-d of Sinai is fundamental, and that spiritual commitment does not exist today on any widespread level.
THE PROCESS
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I did not snap immediately from a Bernie Sanders liberal to what I am now. I was indeed dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way. The force doing the dragging was my desire for intellectual consistency and truth and the spirit of G-d leading me. The dead weight was the whole inherited thought that I, as the child of liberal parents, had absorbed wholesale from my parents and society. So I will sometimes see my posts from 2017 or 2018 and go, "jeez, how could I have ever thought that?" However, and I am generally allergic to self-congratulation, but not everyone could have made the journey. Without a deep commitment to intellectual consistency and truth and simply thinking hard and long about things, I could not have made it.
However I think now my life journey as an intellectual Transformers action figure has now stabilized quite a lot. I am unlikely to make such drastic changes in direction in the future. What's true is true, and fundamental truth doesn't change.
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