Recently, radical Muslim clerics in northwest Pakistan — now under Islamic law –  are calling for expansion of Islamic law across the entire federal republic of Pakistan.  This raises the question: Should religions rule nations?  In a word–No.  However, this needs important clarification.

There seems to be couple senses in which a religion can rule a nation:

First, if a religion rules a nation the leaders of the specific religion are also in governing control, thus in enacting laws the ruler(s) acts only in the interest of that particular religions beliefs.  The State is always subservient to the religion.  The religion is eternal whereas the state is the temporal means through which the eternal truth is communicated and brings society to order.

Second, if a religion rules a nation this could also mean that the ruler is appointed by the leaders of the religion.  This is the case for Charlemagne at the beginning of the 9th century, as Pope Leo III appoints him as Holy Roman Emperor.  However, Charlemagne rules as a Christian Emperor seeking to structure society and government upon a Christian understanding of the world.  Thus, while he is not head of the Church like the Pope, he still governs in the interest of a particular religion.

Often living on this side of history makes us develop habits of thinking that C.S. Lewis calls, “chronological snobbery.”  We assume the myth of progress, the “success” of American democratic ideals as a triumphalist situation in which we can now look condescendingly toward our ‘naive’ ancestors.  We commit the fallacy of thinking the “new” is automatically better than the “old.”

Furthermore in looking at the past, the question of “Should religions rule nations?” is a much different than “Should religious believers have attempted to rule nations with their religion?”

It is all too easy to condemn the views of dead people, and while the past societies may have been wrong they deserve the utmost Charity.  We must let those who have gone before us to have their say.  Yet, often the vices of Christendom are more often discussed than its overwhelming virtues.  The critics of past Christian nations will sooner point to the Crusades, rather than to the Churches role in education and relieving poverty.

Yet, historically, people of faith have resorted to integrating their faith and government so as to ensure the success of their religion.  This is not to merely propagandize.  Most people of faith believe they have the Truth.  Truth is essential to any manner of governing.  Religion is not about subjective beliefs, but facts about the world.  Thus, they do this in order to give their posterity the Truth.

It is not my purpose here to argue that past societies, particularly Christian ones, are unjustified in their nationalization of their particular religion.  However, in the wake of a history of religious bloodshed wisdom now says that the integration of a nation with a particular religion is to be avoided.  In a pluralistic world no nation should operate under a system in which the ruling class forces others to believe a particular religion.  Christianity in particular is not a religion of force, but rather of choice and love.

However, there are eternal truths that all people in all cultures have believed, regardless of religion, e.g. morality.  Unfortunately, European nations and increasingly in America, the nationalizing of religion is often associated with people who are pro-life, and, furthermore, many are accused of the desire to nationalize religion because they engage in public religious discourse.  The secular world desires to denude society of religious language as a secularists view of reality is that faith is merely about private living, not knowledge.

It is important to note that the most religious of people were the founders of the free-world.  Government, as the founders realized, ought to protect fundamental rights.  These rights, regardless of the religion that is the actual source of them, are that of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Yet, this happiness is not a subjective state that one determines on their own, the happiness here is an objective state that one reaches through becoming virtuous by acting out virtue.  Being good is what makes one happy.  Therefore, a nations primary goal ought to be about making good citizens.

Having a religion rule a nation is often more about the force of the religion upon the people, and less about the actual making of good citizens.  One becomes good through free choice, not through coercion.  Radical Islamic nations often fall into the trap of coercing others into belief, rather than persuasively communicating it’s message.

Just as nation ought not nationalize religion, but should allow the free expression of differing religions, a nation with religious freedom ought not reduce religion to merely personal private beliefs held only by merely subjective faith.  Legitimate religions, that is those religions that are grounded upon a reasonable view of reality in line with a universal norms, ought to be allowed freely and openly debated even in a public forum.

Recently, while in Turkey, Obama had this to say, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”

Historically, of course, America has consisted of predominantly Christian citizens.  This is no secret.  Even today the largest religion in America is Christianity.  However, the fact that the majority of the citizens identify themselves as Christians does not necessarily mean that America is a Christian nation.

What then does it mean to be a Christian nation?

The idea of a Christian nation reaches as far back as emperor Constantine in the late Roman empire.  Although Constantine did not declare Christianity as the official religion, he did favor Christianity to an extraordinary degree as he reversed the Great Persecution of Christians under emperor Diocletian with the Edict of Milan in 313.  Because of Constantine’s significant influence on the spread of Christianity he has become the historical lightening rod through which Christianity has become implicated, for good and for ill, with the actions of the state.

It was not until the reign of emperor Theodosius in the late 4th century that Christianity officially becomes the State Religion.  However, the Church and State had been significantly linked decades before.

Much can be said about the Christian Church and State relations throughout history, but suffice it to say that there is a reason the founders of America desired to distinguish these two entities.  Much blood has been shed for such a relationship, yet too often this reality is too prominently emphasized to the exclusion of the overwhelmingly positive impact the relationship did have. (i.e. the University system was established by the integration of the two).

It would be very misleading to say that the founders of America wanted to separate these two entities if you mean by this that they wanted to create a publicly secular nation and leave matters of religion to be merely privatized.

Too often the phrase “separation of Church and State” is used to mean ‘all matters of faith should be removed from the public square.’  This was never the intention of the founders.

On Washington Posts On Faith blog website, Susan Jacopy says, “The majority of Americans are still Christians, but our government is secular and our nation is now composed of nonbelievers and believers of numerous religious denominations–some of which did not even exist at the time of the nation’s founding.“

Jacopy seems to ground her idea that our government is secular primarily on the fact that “God” is not in the Constitution.  And she complains that schools should teach more about the “secular” side of the American History.  It seems that in so far as American historical education is supposed to focus on the main influences of the past in America then religion (especially Christianity) ought to be most studied since it does indeed provide the foundational principles for our nation.  No one can argue with the historical fact that the founders had thoroughly Judeo-Christian cultural values, which significantly influenced their shaping the Constitution.

Furthermore, her quip that “God” is not in the Constitution  ignores the fact that the Constitution was shaped primarily to fulfill those inalienable rights given to man by God as articulated in the Declaration of Independence.  Theism or religion is not rejected just because the name “God” does not appear explicitly in the constitution.  The delegates met in Philadelphia primarily because (as the Federalists argued) the Articles of Confederation were insufficient to properly protect the colonies therefore it was in each colonies best interest that a federal government be formed, albeit it a limited one.  They wanted to form, as the preamble states, a more perfect union,  establish justice as well as secure the blessings of Liberty.

If understanding the author’s intention is the proper method of interpretation, then it is absurd to assume by reading the Constitution that America is a “secular” nation.  America is a reigious nation, if not a Christian nation.  And our government is a religious government.  Ideals like Liberty, Justice, Perfection makes no sense without Theism.  Again, American principles make no sense without God.  It seems that Jacopy, in attempting to distinguish our naton as not a Christian nation, falls off the other side of the horse by reducing American government to “secular”.  The government is not against religion, and promoting faith based insitutions is a good thing for the government to do.

In thinking historically about what it means for a nation to be Christian, there is one sense in which Obama is absolutely right.  We do not have a official state document that says “We are a Christian nation” nor do we have a Christian King who dictates matters of Church and State.  America is a place where people are free to worship their religion of choice, of course this is so long as this religion does not violate anyone’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and as long as it does not hinder the governments ability to protect the freedom of the people.  One can not have a religion that is based on committing crimes, or on hurting individuals.  Their religion most in some sense be consistent with the values upon which our nation is built.

Naturally, the question arises: from where did these values come from?  Values such as equality and liberty?

It seems on some level that it could possibly be argued that America is a Christian Nation, if one wants to lay down the premise that only Christiantiy teaches such ideals.   That is, America is thoroughly a Christian nation if one wants to argue that the principles upon which the government is founded are incomprehensible without Christian values and ideals.  This argument is possible, but goes beyond what I desire to claim here.

We do live in a pluralistic nation, where many religions are given equal treatment by the government.  Yet, even if America is not a Christian nation in the sense that we do not officially state this in a formal governing document this does not mean that America is “secular”.  The American government is thoroughly pro-religion, and whether or not one agrees if Christianity is true should realize that they are indebted to Christians for setting up such a nation.

Though I have often vicariously experienced the pain of loss through various authors’ lamentations, nothing, however, so teaches like the reality of firsthand loss—when that looming shadow that is cast over all our lives is brought painfully and suddenly to the present through the loss of someone we love.

In these times, all intellectual questions about the nature of pain and suffering are presently brought to our mind, yet they are now caught up and entangled with the knowledge and experience of our humanity—we are deeply aware of our lack of answers as we are flooded by overwhelming emotion- like when a stubborn child, who normally is ambivalent to his mothers constant presence, becomes lost and, consequently, desires above all things the embrace of his mothers arms, so we to in the midst of emotional grief long for an embrace that will grant hope amidst the stream of tears.

Because we are who we are—that is because we are human we desire comfort precisely because we need comfort.  Our desires are congruent to a true fact that describes who we are—we are people whose subsistence is derived from something outside ourselves.

There is no experience quite like loss, pain, and death that gives us a more real capacity to understand the often (deeply ignored) fact that we live move and have our being not of our own accord, but through Him who gives life.  In the death of those we love, the reality of our finitude jolts us—even if only for a time—out of our complacency and reduces us to what we truly are: whimpering children in need of something outside ourselves to comfort us in the midst of deep sorrow.

Some have said that “God” is merely our sorrowful “wish fulfillment”.  He is the one whom we have created to comfort us—a sort of psychological blanket to cover our deeply felt despair.  However, suffering is adverse to humanity precisely because we believe in an objective Good—indeed, there is no meaning to the words ‘suffering’, ‘pain’, or ‘evil’ without latent ideas of Good.  The very meaning of these words presupposes a standard to reality.  Something is outside us giving us an “ought’ in life.
Just as the sun gives a glimmer of morning light before it shines blazingly in the day, so this true understanding gives us a glimmer of real hope that slowly begins to shine brightly amidst the steady stream of sorrowful tears.  It is an odd paradox: suffering exists only because Good is real.

And though we live in this world filled with tragedy, the fact that ‘tragedy’ can mean ‘tragedy’ smuggles in this gloriously hopeful truth that reality at its core is a joyous Comedy.  Our hearts are awakened and the Comedy of the world shines brightly—the sun has risen giving life to the flowers that bloom.  Spring has returned on this day and that which has died is resurrected to life.  We see that the world is filled with truth and meaning; it gives us—even if only a shadow—a picture of true reality—“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now we know in part, but then we will know fully just as we also have been fully known.”

A world where suffering actually happens is also a world that presupposes happiness, goodness, and truth.  Living in a world that has meaning is living in a place where things do not happen randomly.  Our choices do matter, and do have consequences.  God cannot be our wish fulfillment for why would we wish for anything without meaning?  And, meaning surrounds us.

In this fallen world to love anything is to risk pain and loss.  When we put our hearts in something we are by that act opening our hearts to the severity of grief.  It might be thought that we should only give our hearts, our love only to God because He is the one who will truly satisfy, one who will truly never change.  But we follow One who gave His life to gain our love.  Yet instead of falling at his knees and embracing the love he extends, we rejected His love.  And yet He shows his love for us in that while we are still sinners He dies for us.  Far from merely experiencing heartbreak for us rejecting His love, He surrendered himself to death to reconcile us and establish the ability for us to love Him.  Thus, we do not have insurances against heartbreak:

There is no safe investment. [Like Christ shows us as he weeps over Jerusalem and also in the garden of Gethsemane] To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (Lewis, The Four Loves).

When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some ‘disinterested’, because really indifferent, concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love.  You asked for a loving God: you have one.  The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artists’ love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes…it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes.  It is certainly a burden of glory not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring…

for we are, not metaphorically, but in very truth a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character…it is natural for us to wish that God has designed for us a less glorious and less arduous [painful] destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf word (Lewis, the Problem of Pain).

Etched into the Declaration of Independence is the famous phrase that we are all endowed with inalienable rights, that of life, liberty….

…..and the pursuit of happiness.

In particular, the idea of happiness is something all humans for every century have discussed.

It is perhaps the most fundamental thing that all men have in common.  We all want to become happy. In the opening lines of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says, “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”

Naturally, the question arises: If all human action seeks some good, then what is this good? After a brief digression, Aristotle observes the common sense notion that all men through their actions seek to live well and do well; they verbally express this as a desire for happiness. However, while all agree verbally that this is the object of desire, there is ample disagreement as to what “happiness” actually is.

Two ancient philosophical schools of thought, Epicureanism and Stoicism, seek to understand the idea of happiness, though (in my opinion) unsuccessfully.

Epicureanism, as the name indicates, is a naturalistic philosophical worldview developed by Epicurus in the late 4th century B.C. Much of our knowledge about Epicurus comes from the last book of Diogenes Laertius’ third-century A.D. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Diogenes preserves three letters written by Epicurus one being a letter to a friend, Menoeceus. At the outset, Epicurus connects seeking wisdom or philosophy with pursuing happiness saying, “to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.”

What is this philosophy or wisdom needed for happiness?

Epicurus believed that the summum bonum of (the highest good or that which makes man truly happy) is pleasure.

Epicurus, later in his letter to Menoeceus says, “…we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good.” However, for Epicurus this idea of pleasure is not defined as the reckless obsession for all sensual delights, as is often our modern conception. He says, “And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but will often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them.”

The idea behind his thinking is that of moderation in all things. There is a ‘just right’ that the person can achieve that sustains pleasure yet prevents pain. Happiness is therefore defined as peace of mind, and freedom of anxiety achieved through moderation and proper understanding of the nature of things. Epicurus philosophy was thus fundamentally ethical, and his view of the world or “nature” was established in order to reduce anxiety in others. For example, he denounced religion because he thought that fear of the gods and of an afterlife created anxiety and prevented people from achieving real pleasure.

Like many pre-Socratic philosophers, Epicurus argued that the universe was all material composed of matter called atoms and void. The devoted Epicurean, Lucretius, elucidates Epicurus’ naturalistic philosophy through the teaching of the maxim, “things cannot be created out of nothing and that things cannot be reduced to nothing.” In other words, the gods do not intervene in human life, and the matter is eternal, making death nothing but a dissolution of the assemblage of atoms.  It is vital to emphasize that the overall structure of Epicureanism was designed to hang together and to serve its principal ethical goals.  Epicurus’ naturalistic scientific theory is subservient to his understanding of happiness as the attainment of pleasure, properly understood.

Stoicism, like Epicureanism, had its origin in Athens during the Hellenistic period with Zeno as its founder. The name Stoicism is derived from meeting in a large stoa (meeting hall with a covered colonnade) in Athens. Since we do not actually possess a single complete work from any of the original stoics (Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus) our knowledge of Stoicism is derived from followers in Roman Imperial times, one of which is Seneca the Younger.

Sencea the Younger describes the promise of philosophy as giving guidance for life.  This guidance of life will make a man happy by giving him calmness, rationality, and self-discipline. While the Stoic idea of the nature of happiness is similar to Epicureans in that both held to a view of happiness as being free from anxiety and pain, the method of achieving happiness differed drastically as well as their worldview behind their ethical theories.

The Stoics, like the Epicureans, make God material. But while the Epicureans think the gods are too busy being blessed and happy to be bothered with the governance of the universe, the Stoic God is immanent throughout the whole of creation and directs its development down to the smallest detail.

The Epicureans believed that a person’s life was random and caused by chance, whereas the Stoics believed “Nature” directed all things. Nature is rational and in fact is Reason, itself. God is equal with Nature, thus God is identified with eternal reason.

What does this have to do with happiness? Seneca says, “The Stoics maintain that happiness is living in accordance with Nature…Only that which is perfectly in accordance with nature as whole is truly perfect. And Nature as a whole is rational.”

Thus, to be happy or free from anxiety or distress is to be in perfect harmony with Reason. Whereas the Epicurean emphasizes the mere acting in moderation to achieve a pleasurable feeling free from anxiety or pain, the Stoic relies on Reason because it is for them what enables one to actually achieve the governing capacity to control their emotions and actions through moderation and thus bring about the state of a painless, anxiety free reality. For the Stoics self-discipline, perseverance, as well as proper thinking achieved through logic and physics became vital to achieve this goal of actually attaining happiness.

Whether or not one of these paths seems to be fulfilling depends on the degree of the actual truth of the theory. Happiness is achieved, naturally, through knowing what happiness is- that is to say, it is achieved, first, through understanding the truth of it. If one does not understand the nature of happiness, how will they know when they have achieved it?

So the question must be asked: What is happiness? Both Epicureans and the Stoics agree that happiness is some sort of painless existence evidenced by an anxiety free reality, which is called pleasure. But is this happiness?

To say that you have achieved happiness merely because you have achieved this pleasurable existence is to beg the question; it is to assume, without demonstration, that the good that you have arrived is itself the highest good. What if there is yet a higher good, that is itself so good it exceeds our present ability to desire that good?

As said at the beginning, happiness is the highest of all goods; it is that which all men strive to achieve. If this is the case, then happiness is achieved by actually living in continual relation to the purpose of existence. In order to achieve happiness one must actually live properly and in accordance to the nature of things.

These ideas, of course, put me at odds with Epicureanism, for it argues that things are random and lack purpose. It’s interesting that Epicurus actually advocates any sort highest good or ethical theory since his worldview of a purposeless universe actually contradicts his idea that humans can have something to achieve. Humans cannot have a purpose if the universe is itself purposeless. And although I do not agree with everything the Stoics advocate, their idea of the nature of things being equal with reason is more plausible, and thus more fulfilling.

Richard Kraut summarizes the nature of reasons involvement in the attainment of happiness,
“The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence.” (emphasis mine).

Reason is necessary for happiness because it is what enables us to live a life of virtue. However, happiness is not merely virtue, rather happiness consists in doing virtuous activity. In order to experience the highest good, one must be actually becoming good themselves.

Shakespeare Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Like a dog who always wants only what the owner has in his hand and never what is in the kennel, so often my discontented heart longs for things of others and not what I currently have.

Or like a small child, who historically is apathetic toward the toys in the bin, is roused to jealousy when another child begins to find pleasure in the small toy truck , so I as well within my soul want those things that others have made fun for my own selfish gain.

The sin of Adam taking what was forbidden (the fruit) was not his most fundamental sin.  Adam, who according to St. Paul represents mankind, fails to appreciate the blessing of not having what he was not given.  He fails take joy in his lackings.

Take joy today in realizing what you do not have, lest you become like Adam and seek glory’s which are too much for you to handle.

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

“To praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” -St. Augustine, Confessions.

The restless heart wanders far from God, it roams, as Augustine says, far from home.

The restless heart pursues vanities because it is tainted with sin.

Sin is to love that which only brings us pain, to delight in that which can not bring joy and happiness, only misery.

The restful heart is found by fully and completely loving God.

Yet, what does it mean to love God? Moreover, what does it mean to love?

At a fundamental (and rather reductionistic level) love is an intimate bond, or a mutual relation between two persons.

Even said so simplistically, one thing is clear: Love is personal. You can not actually love something that is not alive, for to love is to unite your soul with another soul. True, lasting love can, naturally, only happen when you put your love into something true and lasting.

Thus, when two people decide to marry, if they believe that “to love” means to always have an “in love emotional feeling” for their spouse, they then have a false idea of love and will subsequently become disappointed when the emotional intensity of this love disappears. Their love will only last if they love each in “in God”, thus making their conception of love rightly ordered.

If my idea of what something is, is not true to the actual reality of what that thing is, then sooner or later I will become either disappointed or possibly pleasantly surprised. Yet, more often than not I will probably be disappointed in regard to finding out that my idea of the truth of what love is, is not actually true.

It’s odd that we do not find the discovery of truth or the becoming aware of our ignorance pleasing. Why, if I find out that my previous ideas of love are false, do I feel disappointed and not delighted to be at a better place?

As C.S. Lewis has said, often the truth is more repellent to us, and less beautiful than those things we desire.  And, yet, ironically, this is what we ought to expect.

For if Christianity could tell us no more of the Truth than our “own temperaments led us to surmise, then it would be no higher than ourselves. If it has more to give us, then it will be less immediately attractive than our own stuff or ideas…If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.” -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

This is especially true when considering how exactly we are to find our rest in God. Because we, as Augustine says, have “turned from unity in (God) to be lost in a state of disorder and multiplicity“, we are now slowly being gathered up by God and this process is painful, for when something goes from ordered to disordered back to ordered again the process is never easy or pleasurable. God has imposed order and “the punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.”

Consequently, we should not run from the pain that is often associated with finding our rest in God, but we should see it as God putting us back together. Hebrews says, “all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful ; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” – Heb. 10:11-14

To find our rest in God we must love God and put our love solely in him. The deepest longing for our soul is for truth and wisdom. We are to pursue this at all cost, seeking never to avert our eyes from attaining true wisdom.

Fortunately, God realized that in our disordered condition the mind and the soul is maligned in darkness, error and false opinions. “The soul needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth.”

As St. Paul says, “By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.”

God has in Christ given us the enlightenment and wisdom that our souls need. Jesus Christ enables us to be reconciled with God, thus allowing us to truly find our rest. The more we come to see and understand that our longing for truth and wisdom is found in our union with Christ, the more we will find our rest solely in God.

Our rest is found in our longing to know Christ. Our loves our truly restored and ordered aright when we become alive to God in Christ Jesus.

“You will light my lamp, O Lord. My God you will lighten my darknesses, and of your fullness we have all received. You are the true light who illuminates every man coming into this world, because in you there is no change nor shadow caused by turning…O Lord our God, under the covering of your wings we set our hope. Protect us and bear us up. It is you who will carry us; you will bear us up from infancy until old age. When you are our firm support, then it is firm indeed. But when our support rests on our own strength, it is infirmity. Our good is life with you for ever, and because we turned away from that, we became twisted. Let us now return to you that we may not be overturned. Our good is life with you and suffers no deficiency; for you yourself are that good. We have not fear that there is no home to which we may return because we fell from it. During our absence suffers no run; it is your eternity.” -St. Augustine, Confession

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Psalm 62:1-2.

So it seems that the word is out: Textbooks are not accurate in representing Religion… what else is new..?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506773,00.html

This reminds me of a time a few weeks ago when I was subbing at a middle school, and we read out loud as a class a chapter in their history textbook on the Crusades.

In explaining why some went to war, the textbook said “some were just looking for something to do…”

Riiiiiight.

As if going to potentially die in war is a way someone cures their boredom, not to even mention the fact that the very concept of boredom is a modern invention.  Furthermore, in discussing religion with the students, it became apparent that they all thought that Protestants and Catholics were completely separate religions having nothing to do with each other.

(There was one “enlightened” student who summarized the difference as “Catholics worship Mary”).

Not surprisingly, they had never even heard of Eastern Orthodox, which is of course lamentable because the fact remains that without the Byzantine Empire it’s likely they’d all be Muslims.  But I digress.

Is there actually a way to fix public schools? I’m almost convinced that it would be better for people to go uneducated than to be educated in such a way as to make them think they know something but in actuality are unwitting slaves to secular humanists politically correct agenda.

Echoes of Alexis De Tocqueville keep ringing in my ear.  Because the natural tendency of a democratic society is toward trust in one’s own reason (why should I trust one’s opinion over mine? are not we equal?), religion becomes the most important for us to have fixed ideas because it is the most difficult subject, if left to ourselves, to wrap our reason around. Thus, religion by it’s nature forces us outside ourselves, it forces us to recognize an authority that is not our own reasoning.  It checks the natural errors of the “Enlightenment”.

What happens to a society where in the education of the many religion is badly taught and reduced to the margins?  See: Europe

As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, the financial crisis is all due to the Bush Administration’s “failed economic policies” and the “right wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no oversight, no regulation.”

In his opening comments during the first debate, Barack Obama responding to a question about the economic situation of the United States, and specifically the bailout bill said,

“Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down.”

While I understand that the Bush Administration is not perfect, but this idea that is being promoted by the Democrats such as Pelosi and Obama is completely false.

This for numerous reasons:

First, the White House posted a list of the various times in which the Bush Adminstration pushed Congress to put more regulation on government sponsored leading agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080919-15.html

Second, there is a youtube video from a congressional hearing back in 2004, with Republicans repeatedly calling for more regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae, and democrats emphatically denying any need for this. The irony in this video is deafening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Third, in 1977, Jimmy Carter signed in to legislation the the Community Reinvestment Act.  The purpose of the law is to require lending agencies to not discriminate in their lending practices. That is, they must not only offer credit to those in wealthy neighborhoods.  Critics of this law have said, it would “distort credit markets, create unnecessary regulatory burden, lead to unsound lending, and cause the governmental agencies charged with implementing the law to allocate credit.”

The Act has been changed several times, most notably during the Clinton Administration, in which it was made more stringent for banks to attain a passing score.

Under this Act, far left non-profit organizations such as ACORN, are allowed to file motions in court that halt banks from merging due to their failure to have met the CRV Act.  In order to meet this act, banks must use bad business practices by giving loans to those who do not have good credit.  ACORN has also had numerous workers thrown in jail for Voter Registeration Fraud recently.  Barack Obama is actually very closely associated with this group.  He actually worked for them!  He helped them in the efforts to force banks to basically practice bad business!
http://m.nypost.com/ms/p/nyp/nyp/view.m?pid=23772&storyid=131216

Fourth, this article from the NY times in 1999, shows how much the Clinton Administration pressured banks to loan to low-income people, mainly minorities.  The article actually gives warnings as to the possible consequences of such loaning practices.  I’ll give you a hint about the consequences: It has something to do with a lot of money coming from the government in a type of bailout package.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

In order to avoid a similar economic meltdown, one must wisely consider who they are to vote for in this years upcoming election.  This post is to argue that voting for Barack Obama is a vote for those policies that have put us into this economic situation.  The blame game is not fun, but the blame game is necessary if we are to put the United State back on the path of economic prosperity.

I don’t pretend to have a complete or accurate understanding of this book as I have only read it once. But when I completed this William’s masterpiece I knew I had become profoundly different.

For many, Williams is simply incomprehensible, thus frustrating. To others, he is a Classic Romantic. My experience of Williams is somewhere in between these two ideas. At times, I have no idea what he is saying- yet other times he gives me longings like no other author I have read before- longings to experience true joy and true facts and obtain true knowledge of myself.

Williams brilliantly and eloquently shows how the pursuit of ultimate joy is found in the love of “facts” and that self-knowledge is gained through the continual search for truth. In contrast, self-destruction and damnation come to those who put self above truth and pleasure above joy; to those who avoid the truth by perversely seeking their own self-ambition.

This book shows that life is about two ends: ascending to heaven through facing fears and pursuing self-knowledge by relentlessly seeking the truth; or descending to hell by cocooning yourself in a coffin of selfishness.

Thus, every step every day is a journey toward one of the two ends. Will I wake up tomorrow and face the truth? Or will I evade the truth and place self as the end? These are the questions of everyday; of every choice.

Williams has shown me the danger behind choosing wrongly.

There are many times that I loathe being human.  That is, I intensely dislike my finite nature, being inside time, not being omnipresent, and my inability to see or predict the future.  Basically, I commit the fallacy of wanting to be God when it is only possibly to be Clint, and thus to be human.

Why do I commit such a dumb fallacy?

Why do I want to be something other than I am?

Of course, it is good to desire to be like God. Basic Sunday school Christianity teaches that to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is precisely to become more like him, not only metaphorically, but actually.

And here is my error.  I long to be like Christ, but I do the opposite of what it takes to become like Christ. I am tired of waiting on the future, so I worry about future?  I a long to be infinite (which I can’t become anyways), so I get upset at being finite?

To become like Jesus Christ (the one who is alone fully God and fully man) is precisely to not worry and dwell upon who I am not.  Of course, I do need to look to the one who I am not yet this is different than worrying about who I am not.

The only person who I can be today is myself.  Thus, myself I shall be (even if I long to be different).

When I look, gaze, or behold Christ I am admiring Him. Therefore, my admiration of his majesty is what moves me to become like Him.  When I worry about not being like Him my thoughts are turned away from Him and put on myself.

How can I become more like Christ if I am primarily focused not on him but on the self?

To become like Jesus Christ is to fix my eye upon his glory, longing to be completely and fully united with Him by being like Him, while living in the reality of the present condition without giving worry to the future.

As C.S. Lewis says, “Happy work is best done by the man who take his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment “as to the Lord”. It is only our daily bread that we are encourage to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

Amen.