March 06, 2014
Yeast of the Pharisees
My friend, who is an elected
official, has worked single mindedly to build a reputation as a fiscal
conservative. However, in a recent editorial concerning her support of a tax
increase she said, “I’m a strong fiscal conservative and ordinarily oppose any
effort to raise taxes or increase fees. Concerning the recreation district
initiative I am making an exception.” Certainly we all have the right to change
our minds on issues, but I’m surprised by the flip-flop. What I find really interesting
is that regardless of her decision, she still wants to hang on to the label of
“strong fiscal conservative.” Believers
are not immune from such shades of hypocrisy. We set ourselves up on a biblical foundation as strong people
of faith and then we make exceptions on
abortion, adultery, co-habitation, and homosexuality. Speaking to his disciples
Jesus gave the warning, “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy.” (Luke 12:1b NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----She can have the label if she wants it. It is no longer useful. A good dictionary says it’s a holding to tradition while accepting cautiously guarded change, being protective of established institutions. Social security is now an established institution guarded vociferously. Its philosophical underpinnings are those of outright left-wing collectivism, although its creation was billed as a conservative insurance by the traditionally honored man whose name at that time was being more and more thought of in the context of three others: Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. I am becoming disinclined to accept the label “conservative” for my general frame of mind.
-----I don’t know what term might apply to the way I’m coming to think. I passed on "Libertarian" quite quickly. It distinguishes the individualism I so honor. But it has no honor for either wisdom or what‘s right. It sends the individual off wandering to do whatever he pleases. So long as he does not tread on another’s toes, he can stomp his own into the dirt. Conversely, the individual must be properly constructed to desire a right benefit for others in all he does. So we argue about what is right. Ugh. “Truther” is kind of a dumb expression. Not the concept of it so much as just the way it sounds. Besides, the truth is quite an elusive thing, always running between your fingers like melting Jell-O and leaving behind that one fruit of its entire essence and flavor: Jesus is the Christ, Son of the Living God, Savior of any who call on Him as being King of Kings. What morsel of nourishment could be better for mankind? Yet it fails to sort out the recreation district’s passion for a new wreck-center in light of the community‘s struggle to eat.
-----I like Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism as far as it ties up to man’s obligation towards reality. We don’t think about it much, but we pay daily tribute to reality. We sleep near eight hours a day, not from desire, but by the dictates of reality. We eat every day by the dictates of reality. We pay tribute to reality moment by moment: we breathe or we die. Why do we abandon reality when we go to thinking? Maybe because if we don’t think at all, or think poisonously, we don’t immediately die as if we didn’t eat or did eat hemlock. My philosophy says to throw your ideas against the wall of reality‘s logic, and if they stick, incorporate them. If they splash and drip to the floor; mop them up; squeeze them out; boil them down some more, and try them again.
-----But don’t call me an objectivist. Ayn Rand refused to acknowledge the reality of revelation, even though she most likely did not discover the principles of physics and math and geometry and psychology or the events of history on her own, but rather went to books and teachers and professors who all, uh, uh, uh-hem, revealed these things to her. Oops. There’s reality again! She didn’t stick.
-----During a time when fraud and deceit are flourishing so richly in the place of the actual productivity they smother, the idea of siphoning more economic blood into the extravaganza of a mega structure supplying nothing more than a place to exercise besides home runs off reality’s logic onto the floor as fluidly as that nasty stuff my tom-cat used to spray against the wall. Of course, when it comes to thinking, who needs reality. Think the hemlock if by it you personally prosper. Then spend your last nickel driving across town to exercise in the hole dug with your former dollars.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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