Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Thanksgiving


The other day I received a mass email greeting from the president of the university where I direct a campus ministry.  It was a Thanksgiving greeting.  In it the president thanked the recipients for their “friendship and support” of the university.

That’s nice.  It is good to thank those who have done things for us, or for groups or causes of which we are a part.  But it impoverishes and even bastardizes the American tradition of Thanksgiving.

The point of the day is to focus on expressing thanks to God.  I know university presidents probably cannot officially endorse that today.  But it might be better, if you cannot participate officially in the spirit of Thanksgiving, to just ignore it and let it pass.

In fact, there is very little reason to thank other people for things if there is no God.  If God does not exist, then all things are morally permissible, including ingratitude to other people.  Why are other people important at all, except for your own purposes, if there is no Creator to Whom we owe thanks?

One of the tragic and ironic things about modern higher education is the attempt to pursue learning in an atmosphere of pretended religious neutrality.  In the end, everything is “religious.”  Until we understand that, we will understand nothing.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

LGBT Consistency

Reading the news this morning in the digital way that I now do, I came across the headline in the business section of the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Who are the most gay-friendly employers in Cincinnati?

My attention was drawn to the opening words:

Who are the most gay-friendly major employers in Cincinnati? Washington, D.C.-based The Human Rights Campaign is naming names.

In its annual report, the nation's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization graded Fortune 1000 companies and other employers across the nation in five general areas: nondiscrimination policies; employment benefits; demonstrated organizational competency and accountability around LGBT diversity and inclusion; public commitment to LGBT equality; and responsible citizenship.

The problem I have with this intense campaign currently underway in our society is not that some people have a problem with the ethics of sexual activity.  People have problems with ethics in many areas.  We often know what we should do but fail to do it.  The problem is that the LGBT lobby, of which The Human Rights Campaign is clearly a part, will not recognize that there can be problems with the ethics of sexual activity.  And clearly, the Cincinnati Enquirer is to some extent promoting this lobby.

My problem is that the LGBT lobby is inconsistent in what they advocate.  They demand “diversity and inclusion” – but only for themselves.  If they truly believed in diversity and inclusion, they would not, and could not, object if some Fortune 1000 company decided to hire a CEO who believed, and made public, her view that homosexual activity is ethically impermissible.  We don’t even have to investigate to know that such a move would be met by the LGBT lobby.

And I doubt that, even now, most of the LGBT lobby would accept another “B” in their collection of letters:  one that stands for “bestiality.”  And would the Cincinnati Enquirer run the headline “Who are the most bestiality-friendly employers in Cincinnati?”?  Not next year, perhaps, but soon, very soon.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The Comic Book the World Awaited

Remember Jonathan Gruber?  Who can forget him?  In the little listening to broadcast news I have done lately, I have heard Barrack Obama and Nancy Pelosi (among others) emphatically declare “We don’t know him!”

So it was with no little amusement that I read today that good old J.G. – the man nobody knows – wrote a comic book in 2011.  This little gem, sure to become a collector’s item for reasons never intended by its author, is titled Health Care Reform: What It Is, Why It's Necessary, How It Works.

The back of the book carries a little blurb explaining Gruber’s credentials to write this comic book.  Here is what is says in part:

Dr. Jonathan Gruber is a professor of economics . . . He was a key architect of Massachusetts’s ambitious health reform effort and consulted extensively with the Obama administration and congress during the development of the Affordable Care Act.  The Washington Post called him “possible the [Democratic] Party’s most influential health-care expert.

A bit of looking around Amazon reveals that this book is now out of print, so be sure to get yours now for all those “stupid American voters” (according to Gruber) on your Christmas list.  I must say that I at first want to agree with Gruber on that point about American voters.  After all, they did elect Obama twice.  On the other hand, what choice did they have the second time?  The “health care Obama of Massachusetts” named Romney?

And while you are picking up copies of this comic book for friends and family at Christmas, why not be nice enough to get a copy for Barrack, Nancy, and perhaps Hillary.  If they haven’t read it yet, they probably should.