In response to this post from Trent Horn:
I have no clue who Mr. Horn is. I think I've heard the name. But I saw multiple reactions against this, especially from leftwing Catholics all about gun control and government policy as our only hope.
In fairness to them, however, they are right in saying Mr. Horn is wrong. Those who have said gun violence is a pro-life issue are spot on correct. Even if they run with it to push political agendas and ignore the obvious social and spiritual ailments we are watching bear fruit in our society, they are right about that.
Anything that involves aiding, preserving and saving the lives of God's children is a pro-life issue. That doesn't mean, however, that it follows Gun Control is a pro-life issue. Nope. That is a vague term representing one possible solution. Or maybe it isn't a possible solution. Or maybe there are policies that fall under 'gun control' that are worth looking at, while others are not. But a given political solution is not necessarily pro-life. Something we need to understand. Politicians may enjoy equating their particular party with the Thrice-Holy, but we Christians should avoid such leaps. Thus:
 |
| If you think the problem is with only one party, you're the problem. |
But gun violence as a pro-life issue? Oh yeah.
To be honest, the fact that Deacon Greydonus is pro-gun control isn't the issue. I tend to be against gun control, but I totally get why many folks disagree with me on that. The issue isn't even that he's taking shots at the GOP. again, I think he's incorrect in his views (the democrats aren't exactly innocent in all this), but being wrong isn't a crime. The issue is that his comments are so cartoonishly bizare, so hilariously insane, so unhinged, I'm not sure what kind of weed he's on, but I'm scared.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Deacon Greydanus, from what I can tell, is that he readily accepts the conclusions of the Left while not necessarily accepting its premises. At least not yet. The difference between Christians who cleave unto the left vs. the right is that those who confuse the Gospel with conservatism are nonetheless confusing it with an ideology that pays lip service to the values of the historical Christian faith. The left, on the other hand, repudiates and hates almost everything Christians took for granted to be true and good. So you can see some bad theology coming from Christians trying to equate the Gospel to conservative politics, but from the Christians trying to align with the left it gets downright crazy.
DeleteAs is the case once in a while, the leftcaths are correct. But, as always, their truth is mixed with error.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Dave. In fact, I can't see how Horn said what he did. It is manifestly a life issue.
But gun control can't heal the spiritual rot underlying most gun violence. Expecting a gun ban to fix that is like expecting Nyquil to cure tuberculosis.
Heh, that's about spot on correct. I'm often amazed at Christians unwilling to act as if the Gospel has any particular benefit for people in a nation. I've seen them say it outright. As if the Gospel is a great way to kill a Sunday, but in the real world it's politics that's the answer.
Delete"The issue is that his comments are so cartoonishly bizare, so hilariously insane, so unhinged, I'm not sure what kind of weed he's on, but I'm scared."
ReplyDeleteThe Deacon is not on drugs. He's enjoying the rush of political polarization.
It offers a great rush of righteousness and belonging. But it never ends well.
The fun of extremism.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLNhPMQnWu4
Even though the majority of mass shooters who survived were found mentally ill, in today's world mental illness is not always treated or looked at as an illness is but is celebrated(gender dysphoria) and when they ARE treated they are given a concoction of drugs with side effects that could throw an elephant for a loop with suicidal thoughts, depression, violent tendencies etc. The solution will never be restricting the rights of the law abiding citizen but helping those who's mental faculties are damaged. You will always have the ones who only want to kill or injure people. Guns or not we cannot anticipate their actions. The restriction of rights would be like banning cars because of the drunken driver. Besides all that, ladies and gentlemen, the left is not looking for a solution to stop school shootings but as a way to disarm the populace. Conspiracy? Ask Venezuela, Russia, China and Germany in the '30s and see if they think such thinking is conspiratorial.
ReplyDeleteWe put more time, emphasis and money into mental health than at any time in history, and yet so many problems associated with mental health are getting worse, not better. I say it's time to reevaluate our current approach to the issue. Heck, as a person of faith I believe there are problems that have nothing to do with mental health but are purely moral and spiritual And even those that can be linked to mental health don't preclude the presence of moral or spiritual realities. But as you say, I don't think solving the problem is high on the priority list. I think exploiting the problem to strip away our freedoms and rights is more to the point.
DeleteWhen you think about it what exactly do the young have in life today that grounds them in reality and truth? Every institution WE grew up with is being torn down and irreparably damaged whether it be religious, the courts, police, FBI, education etc, so much so that many people cannot trust or have faith in these foundations any longer. Even science is susceptible. Imagine being a kid and someone who you trust tells you "Sure you may have been born a boy but you can be what ever gender you want!". Not even the sex and gender you were born with is set in concrete anymore. We've seen the medical community played like a fiddle to the tune of the movers and shakers(Covid)
DeleteIt's no wonder mental issues are so prevalent. These people have nothing to depend on, no safety net and with social media as an their only outlet it is no wonder they are not connected to the real world when the virtual world is now all they know. I'm not sure how long it will be before civilization realizes that the need for God is more of a necessity as
the air we breathe.
I absolutely agree. The dumpster fire society we've built does not point people toward any value system that would care about life unless convenient to do so. Our modern paganism values life insofar as it benefits me to care, otherwise life is mine to define, just like reality is mine to define.
DeleteAnything that involves aiding, preserving and saving the lives of God's children is a pro-life issue.
ReplyDeleteBy that logic, isn't anything and everything the government does a pro-life issue? To the point the phrase loses all meaning? On the one hand, you have the simple fact that resisting a government edict - no matter how small - could lead to death. To try and look at it from the other side, one could make it almost a game. You pick out a law, no matter how seemingly minor, and the other players invent political reasoning on how that law is saving someone's life.
And well... when it comes to pro-life, well there is the question of are we talking about survival... or living?
Bonus round:
https://markpshea.com/2022/05/31/the-gun-cult-is-now-the-biggest-killer-of-children-ages-1-to-19/
I don't know. I think just the opposite I think we've allowed too much of an either/or in many of these debates. I think, as I said below, that pro-life is the calling of the Gospel to protect the helpless, to aid the suffering, to feed the hungry, and to preserve the life of those made in God's image. I'm sure many things can hinder that, or help. Even things from the government. But often the policies are not a matter of pro-life but the issues are. Hence the issue of gun violence, like any violence - including abortion - is a pro-life issue. We want to protect innocent life. But that doesn't follow that gun control is a pro-life issue. It's mrely one suggestion for how to do things. And as you say, gun control measures could end up being against a pro-life cause.
DeleteYeah, the game is always in how the terms are defined.
DeleteOne thing I've come to realize is that charity is really a means to an end - the end being connections, community, and relationships. It's why government efforts at charity always fail - because government can't love you, only the church can. About the only thing government can do is provide the security and space for the church to work, anything more than that will fail.
But that's a much longer and deeper topic.
It's why government efforts at charity always fail
DeleteThey don't.
Oh well put, Art. I forgot that poverty had been erased as the government declared war on it and that single-payer healthcare never had any rationing or shortages. /sarc
DeleteC'mon man, I know you're smarter than this.
Government hasn't gotten rid of poverty, and many government programs have gone arawy, but some government safety nets have been very helpful. I speak from experience, being autistic.
DeleteOh well put, Art. I forgot that poverty had been erased as the government declared war on it and that single-payer healthcare never had any rationing or shortages. /sarc
DeleteC'mon man, I know you're smarter than this.
You made a categorical statement "Government efforts at charity always fail". Which is a false statement. For it to be a true statement, you'd have to have a ready understanding of what it means to succeed, you'd have to persuade people that your understanding was the correct one, and you'd have to persuade everyone that every program ever had failed every time.
What public sector programs do satisfactorily is transfer income. They work when there isn't a great deal of leakage to white collar crime and what not and when you do not have a retreat from the labor force you deem socially suboptimal (which is in turn a normative argument).
Now, you can have public agencies provide services that might otherwise be provided by market participants. These fail and succeed in degrees. The questions at hand include (1) does your polity have the will and the capacity to set up and maintain competent publi bureaucracies and (2) that aside, are there better means to the end which you seek and (3) is the problem you address truly a problem??
People invoke Lyndon Johnson a great deal. The thing is, the Office of Economic Opportunity and its programs were dismantled between 1969 and 1985. Medicare and Medicaid are still about. These are problem programs in a half-dozen different ways, but you'd only say they 'failed' if their was no significant improvement in the ability of the impecunious and the elderly to finance their medical care. Head Start is still about and largely unsuccessful; you'd have a better argument if your thesis was that the program was misconceived in essence, not that it fails because its a government program. Subsidy programs from that era - SNAP, school lunches &c, housing subsidies - haven't failed in the sense that they did not improve the real income of their beneficiaries. They're troublesome for other reasons and readily replaceable.
My father was born in 1928. Poverty as the term would have been understood in that era actually is rare as hen's teeth outside the vagrant population. Our problem today is more insecurity than poverty.
What is the exact definition of "Pro-Life?" It's becoming so broad as to be almost as meaningless as "genocide."
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's an 'according to Hoyle.' I think it's the spirit of protecting the widow and the orphan, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and preserving and protecting the lives of those made in the image of God. But that's me. So in that sense, I do think gun violence is a pro-life issue, but gun control is not necessarily so.
DeleteAll the things that you mentioned are better described as "being a Christian" or "doing God's will."
DeleteBut if you describe your actions in those terms rather than being "pro-life" you don't open yourself up to dumb attacks like "if you were REALLY pro-life you wouldn't eat meat!"
I certainly hope they're Christian. But I see it as a way to hamstring the popular pro-choice narrative that 'pro-life' only means anti-abortion. I like to say I am anti-abortion, as part of being pro-life, because I care about protecting and preserving all human life. Hence my opposition to abortion.
DeleteDave, you're describing the corporal works of mercy -- food, drink, clothing, shelter, and company for those who need them, and also burying the dead.
DeleteI'm fine with labeling the corporal works of mercy pro-life. My point is that the pro-abortion movement has said pro-life merely means anti-abortion, and that's it. It cares not a lick for any other aspect of life. I say show them pro-life means everything we do care about, including, but not limited to, abortion.
DeleteSemantics. Pro-life issues are issues that concern the preservation of unborn life. Gun violence is a quality of life issue. But the unique evil of abortion can't be lumped in with any other injustice.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I think it's naive to suggest that gun violence is a pro-life issue. The people who frame gun violence in those terms are always gun control advocates who are trying to draw an equivalency between peaceful gun ownership and child dismemberment in the womb.
DeleteAs for Greydanus, he's a leftist through and through. He's desperate for the approval of his liberal peers (which is ironic, given the quality of his film criticism). He's splitting the difference by being both a bad clergyman and a bad film critic.
How is abortion unique? Unlike most forms of homicide, most of the folks promoting it are genuinely unaware that the victim is even human.
Delete"Gun Violence is a Quality of Life Issue,"
Tell that to a parent who just lost their kid to gang violence, a school shooting or other forms of gun-related death. Something that kills you is by definition beyond a mere "quality of life," issue.
Greydonus is actually a pretty good film critic. It's possibly the only thing he still does at all well. His film review website is the only place on the internet where he's still fairly reasonable.
I think we fall into the trap that pro-abortion activists set out if we go that way. The pro-choice narrative is that the pro-life movement is nothing pro-life at all. It's merely anti-abortion. It cares not a lick for any other aspect of life, and once you're born you're on your own. That's why I'm find saying 'anti-abortion' as part of the broader 'pro-life', which includes the protection, care and preservation of all human life.
DeleteDonald, oddly enough, I used to enjoy reading Deacon Greydanus and debating him. I found him a good guy who discussed and debated with good will. I didn't care for his film reviews, however. Some were very good, but there was too much post-modern. First, there are movies he's never mentioned even if they are classics in some areas. Second, he's far too tilted toward 'CGI and spandex will get you an extra letter grade'. I mean, he pinged Lawrence of Arabia, one of the great cinematic masterpieces of all time, for a few minor points, but then gave the trash heap Phantom Menace a B-. A critic who has those two movies less than three grade letters away from each other raises alarms IMHO. Finally, even early on he embodied the now standard leftwing approach of 'judge, judge, and judge all who had the temerity of not making films in our superior generation'. In fact, I've often wondered if those tendencies were early indicators of where he appears to have gone.
DeleteHe's admitted that his views of the Star Wars Prequels are biased, due to his childhood love of Star Wars or something. I enjoyed the film as well, dispite it's flaws. I haven't seen Lawrence of Arabia, nor do I recall reading his review. I don't remember him juging films harshly based on superior generations or whatever. I'd need a specific example.
DeleteI just went back to read his review. I didn't see anything negative in his Lawrence of Arabia review. He seemed to think it was a masterpiece. When Revenge of the Sith came out, he added an addendum to his phantom menace review saying he'd been too lenient originally. He's also more recently admitted that he enjoys the prequels more than they deserve.
DeleteHe did say LoA was a masterpiece, but pings it nonetheless. And it's his bias - which is fair, all critics have biases - that is clearly behind his willingness to give points to otherwise bland fare. As for his preference for modern morals over those old timers, it comes out in various reviews. I seem to recall him taking a swipe at Snow White (over how women were versus wonderful now). He gave it a huge rave review, as well he should. But he had to inject that 'woe be them' which is, of course, the basis of what we now call 'cancel culture' Plus, he doesn't review films that used to be mandatory. That post-modern 'my movies please', as opposed to believing there are 'essentials' that should be reviewed. Used to be you could pick up any movie review book and know there would be certain movies in all of them. As far as I know he hasn't reviewed anything with Paul Newman or Alfred Hitchcock for that matter. Gone With the Wind? Maybe he has now, but I couldn't find it years ago.
DeleteThis isn't to say I despise his reviews. I enjoy them sometimes. I remember his review of the Wizard of Oz. A wonderful piece. And one I wonder if he still holds to now, all these years later.
He's mentioned Hitchcock a bunch of times, but hasn't done a full review of any of his stuff. I'm not sure what the term "ping," means in this context. I read his entire review of Lawrence, and every comment was either positive or neutral. He once said positive things about the Confederacy during a letter he wrote responding to comments about a film called The General, so I doubt his avoidance Gone with the Wind was motivated by any Anti-Confederate bias. I'm not sure what you mean by "postmodernism," I'm pretty sure postmodern ideology is based on the idea that nothing is inherently moral or immoral. Whatever flaws Deacon G. May have, an unwillingness to make moral or philosophical jugments isn't one of them.
DeleteOh, he's mentioned him, but that's my point. I can't image a major film critic before the 90s not having at least half a dozen Hitchcock films in his catalogue. You just didn't not include those films. There were the essentials that the post-modern sensitivity doesn't concern itself with. There are no 'essentials', there is only what I like. Sort of like now, there is only my truth. Same with GWTW. I didn't say he didn't have it for some anti-Confederacy reason. He simply didn't have it. The most successful and one of the most documented movies of all time. Just because he didn't. And with Arabia, I read his review as well. That's why his A- rating was puzzling. I get the ending has always been a point of debate, but pinging it to an A-, when the review suggests A+++? And then against Phantom or other Marvel fare simply because CGI/Superhero? That's my point. Post-modern is less based on nothing is moral or immoral (that was the rage as far back as the 70s), as much as nothing is anything but that I say so. Hence old liberal tolerance was 'everyone live and let live since who's to say who's right?'. Post-modernity, however, is that I am darn well right about my truth, and you had best get in line or else. Even if it's getting in line with my dogmatic definition of diversity.
DeleteDavid: "Pro-life" and "anti-abortion" are synonyms. What folks like Greydanus propose is redefining "pro-life" to include a slew of non-abortion issues. In other words, they want to muddy the waters and recalibrate American political discourse so that it aligns with their definition of "pro-life." It's already taken nearly fifty years to reverse Roe, and even that isn't a guarantee. Not yet, at least. So, I don't think pro-lifers should take on additional issues, at least not within the parameters of pro-life activism.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, that's not what postmodernism entails. Far too often, people use that word as a synonym for leftism or American liberalism. Regardless, I don't think Greydanus is a good film critic for a whole host of reasons. Here's one: he gave Paul Haggis' "Crash" a B while giving "Brokeback Mountain" an F. Now, I'm not a Catholic, and I recognize that Catholics will object to the content of the latter film. But there's honestly no aesthetic basis for deeming the latter film to be that much worse than the former film. I think even the most virulent opponent of homosexuality would be hard-pressed to argue that the former is a better movie than the latter (which isn't to say that they must approve of the latter).
Donald: Obviously, any person with a modicum of human decency regards gun violence with the utmost revulsion. My point is that pro-lifers shouldn't fall into the pro-aborts' trap by trying to take on every single cause of human death. Just as the abolitionists were justified in focusing their efforts *as abolitionists* on black oppression (as opposed to, say, the oppression of Native Americans), pro-lifers are justified in focusing on the plight of the unborn. Obviously, if pro-life advocates want to tackle gun violence in their spare time, that's fine. But there's no reason to add another issue to the pro-life agenda, especially when it's already taken fifty years to (potentially) overturn Roe.