May 30, 2007
A Short, Brilliant Quote
Last post for a while for me, I think. :) In my reading of Laurence Vance’s work, I ran across a brilliant quote in his article “Christianity and the War”:
Lew Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, has brilliantly summarized what is wrong with modern conservatism:
The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.
That first phrase, “[American conservatism] hates the left more than the state” was especially powerful, I think. I do fear that we conservative evangelicals are letting our hatred of the left blind us to our own faults and the dangers of our own politics. If the Anti-Christ should rise in America, I fear it could possibly be with our backing in support of his program to crush the godless, immoral Left.
Another telling phrase, “[American conservatism] thinks it is better to impose truth than risk losing one’s soul to heresy.” He’s spot on.
As for believing that brute force is the answer to all social problems, I think that’s a ridiculous exaggeration, and I don’t see that we have “always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.” Also, I think it would be better to say “It has never trusted the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society” than “understood.”
A little later in his article, Vance writes: “To their everlasting shame, I suspect that it is evangelical Christians who will support Bush until the bitter end—no matter how many more U.S. soldiers are killed, no matter long the war continues, no matter how many more billions of dollars are wasted, and no matter what outrages the president commits against the Constitution, the rule of law, and Christianity itself.” I think he may be right, though I’m not yet convinced it is to our everlasting shame. I can find a great deal of sympathy in my mind for the idea of standing loyal to the end, though that seems strange. I can at least see some humor in standing firm to spite the Left.
