I’m Not Finished Yet

Posted on October 1, 2017 by ehurst

This is the last post in the series of four.

In the Old Testament we see a very ancient feudal approach to military service. As a profession, it was not limited to nobles, but included a large number of peasants recognized for their military virtues and talent, men kept on staff as bodyguards and messengers. With the birth of Western Germanic feudalism, this idea didn’t catch on until rather late in the Middle Ages. It’s appearance is mixed with the rise of the merchant middle class. Prior to that, violence itself was considered both a talent and right restricted to noble blood. This exclusive attitude left the merchants few options to exercise their talents, so they developed their own systems and a different approach to things.

Remember that, for a merchant, everything must serve the virtue of monetary profit. The idea of the modern secular state is entirely a creature of the middle class culture. I’m not going to wade too deeply into a historical analysis of Germanic military culture, but I will tell you that the US military is self-consciously modeled to a great degree on Prussia. You can find an excellent summary here. The author notes the essential element of Calvinism. The hide-bound legalism of both religious Calvinism and US Military ways is well known.

Have you noticed that a very religious Calvinism is the primary source of a secularized state? The whole idea of modern military conscription is based on the Calvinist Prussian model of creating a system that swallows everyone and spits out uniformity in a sense of honor and duty to the state. It’s part of the US education system, of course. It’s this all-encompassing compulsory participation based on the a priori assumption that the world is a threat. It is very uniquely rooted in the dour and gloomy outlook of primitive Germanic tribal culture. If you understand the dark world of Beowulf, you understand the basis for Calvinism, Prussian culture, as well as the US education and military systems.

The harshly leveling effect did tend to pull up the weak, but it also makes precious little room for those who are highly talented. At the very least, it constrains and harshly channels that talent in service of the state. There is no such thing as genuine military virtue in the US Army; there are only varying degrees of bringing glory to the state. At least, that’s how it comes out on paper. In actual practice, everyone in the military who deals with a natural born trooper recognizes it and seeks to advance his opportunities, even if they all have conflicting ideas about what path of advancement is best. But that favor is fragile, because it pushes the talented trooper up against the boundaries of the envelope.

The bureaucratic hive-mind is the direct result of the Calvinist Prussian model, which in turn is a very critical element in middle class culture. Everything must serve the state, so much that the health of the state is the definition of “common welfare.” It’s when people instinctively balk at the dehumanization that they start wondering if violence itself is inherently immoral. Such is the natural result of being still stuck deeply inside the idolatry of the state. This whole thing of the genetic gloomy disposition and it’s resulting cultural paths through Calvinist Prussian middle-class and fundamental assumptions about reality can leave very few escape routes for the individuals who realize they don’t belong in that system.

Only when you make a concerted effort to understand that false world view in comparison to other world views can you find a better path. We who promote the heart-led way have a very big task breaking people free from the cultural prison here in the US. You have to crawl completely outside of this prison in order to understand who you are in Christ before you can go back inside and help others to escape. That’s the paradox of being a witness for Christ; the whole point of escaping is to come back inside the walls on His terms. We are truly free, but for most of us that freedom means nothing until we demonstrate it to those still chained.

This is the whole point of God’s revelation in the first place. It sets us free to walk in the truth inside the prison walls of the Fall. In a very real sense, the prison is just an artificial construct of the human mind. Our mission is to pretend just enough that the walls are real, because they are very real to those still enslaved to their sin. That’s how we enter their prison in order to bring them out.

On the one hand, I’ve often tried to deny that I am a soldier by nature. That’s because I cannot embrace the Calvinist Prussian model of external constraints. Instead, I was born with a sense of obligation based on the moral character of God. That’s in contrast to the “duty, honor, country” ethic of mainstream US military thinking, which amounts to idolatry of the state. My motto is that “duty, honor, order” in the sense of conforming to the image of Christ.

While English translations vary widely, some implying that violence itself is evil, that’s not what the Scripture actually says. The Bible is loaded with lauding a proper military posture based on personal calling and commitment to protecting God’s blessings (shalom) from the ever-present threat of those guided by Satan. So long as we are under the Curse of the Fall — until Christ returns to restore Eden — it’s part of the resistance against sin to know that we must be ready to shed blood. Sometimes it’s our own, but too often people have chosen a path that demands their blood at our hands. Somebody has to do that job; that’s fundamental to the Covenant of Noah.

I’m one of those people called to that job, one of those peasants with a talent for military service. I take no pleasure in violence, but I understand it’s place in Biblical Law. I do take pleasure in keeping shalom at whatever price fallen men want to charge for it. While shalom is commonly translated as “peace,” it also means duty, honor and order under God’s hand. God commanded violence often enough to make it clear He intends some of us to be talented at executing His justice among men. That’s part of my calling.

This is why I still feel drawn to military service. The only option for such service is a system still stuck inside the prison. I’m determined in Christ to bring His truth back into the prison. I can’t free military service itself, but I have already seen with my own eyes individuals within that service who were set free when I obeyed the call to get involved. That call has not ended. The circumstances have changed greatly, and I’d be shocked if I found myself in uniform again, but I cannot avoid praying and seeking a way to get involved in the military again where my Kingdom harvest was by far the most fruitful times in my life.

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Bible Study Break

Posted on September 30, 2017 by ehurst

It feels rather odd. For some years now I’ve worshiped at home. As part of my routine of life, every Saturday was a prep day, in which I would study another chapter of the Bible for the message the next morning. But the recent Psalms series (taking more than three years) was the end.

That is, so far as I know, I’ve covered the whole Bible. Once I finish formatting the study in Psalms, I’ll have published commentary of one type or another on the whole thing. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in the Bible by any means, but the routine is missing the sense of obligation that I always knew what was next.

I don’t know what’s next, so I’m won’t be posting a Bible study this week.

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Liberty Is Death

Posted on September 30, 2017 by ehurst

“Few Men desire Liberty; most Men only wish for a just master.” Sallust

You are supposed to read that and ponder how wonderful it would be, how morally necessary it is, to pursue liberty. But genuine liberty is a major pain in the ass. There’s a very good reason for that: Genuine political and economic liberty is contrary to God’s revelation. It’s unnatural in the sense that we aren’t designed for it, and nature does not support it. God can give you a just master, and it would be a sign of His favor. If God gives you liberty, it’s the first step toward wrath.

Liberty as popularly conceived and lauded in Western literature refers to a political and social structure that has never worked, because the philosophical assumptions ignore our fallen nature. If you take seriously the moral nature of the Fall, you will never ask for a democratic process in government. You’ll beg for tribal feudalism. You’ll understand the concept that no one should have any significant authority over your daily life unless they are related by blood or covenant. You’ll understand that it is utterly impossible to prevent a democratic government from degrading into the most oppressive and dehumanizing mess possible. You’ll want the protection from heartless bureaucratic demands that are inevitable in democratic systems.

If you take the revelation of God seriously, you will pray for a just master as the best possible life in this world.

Part of the reason for the myth of democracy is because of just how awful Western feudalism was. Think about it for a moment. The Germanic nations invading the tottering remains of the Roman Empire were not civilized; they were barbaric to the fullest extent. But they were organized, and their social structure is what became the Medieval feudal system we all read about in history books and as portrayed in popular fiction.

There was nothing noble about the Germanic noble class. Most of what we can point to as “noble” in the Middle Ages was due to the influence of the Church trying tame the invaders without completely alienating them. It was a cynical ploy to protect the Church from losing everything. The Church cajoled, manipulated and puffed up the rulers of the barbaric hordes in exchange for keeping her influence and property. In the process, true biblical nobility was virtually lost. Only a few shreds of moral dignity survived.

For their part, the nobles found the Church a valuable ally in maintaining their control. However, their acceptance of this new mythology was highly variable. The one thing Western nobility got right was having no fear of death, particularly a death in pursuit of what little transcendent values the noble class held. They would gladly die in pursuit of doing the right thing, as they viewed it. The Church gave lip service to this, and it was something already inherent in German traditions, so in this new “Christian” context if was deeply confirmed.

This fearlessness was matched by a rather casual attitude toward physical property. For a nobleman, it was a simple matter that their position entitled them to as much as they wanted to use, so their reflex was to think there was more where that came from. As the Middle Ages wore on, their tastes got more expensive and their sources grew tight. They discovered there were limits and it was quite frustrating.

This is where the middle class merchant’s discovery of how profit worked gave them an advantage. Profit arose in part from being very careful with the use and exchange of property. They took something in abundance in one place to some other place where it was rare and exchanged for something in abundance there but rare back home. It was profitable; it created wealth that wasn’t there before. Similar profits came from adding value to raw materials and manufacturing things they cleverly designed. Nobles seldom bothered with such things, but they did lust for the wealth they saw accumulating in merchant hands.

The merchants on their part despised the rough-n-ready extravagance of the nobles, particularly in terms of violence to life and property. They used their wealth to buy off the nobles, and thus was born the rise of middle class politics. Everything was a calculated gamble, just like trading. This was about the time we had the Renaissance, Reformation and later the Enlightenment — all born from the surging power of the merchant class, AKA the middle class. Even beauty was a matter of calculus. However, what matters most is the calculus of a government that was structured to favor middle class habits and values.

That’s what liberty meant for them, and it’s how we got today’s materialist mythology of “liberty.” At the same time, it was the source of the most dehumanizing and oppressive idolatry of Mammon ever seen in human history. It’s the fullest realization of the prophetic image of Babylon.

Yep, there’s still more to come on this.

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The Cultural Value of Life

Posted on September 29, 2017 by ehurst

Some things are instinctive to us humans in the sense that, for the average Joe and Jane, the heart cannot be totally silenced. It takes a lot of damage and willful spite to become totally deaf to it, and it’s quite rare.

Thus defined, one of our instincts is to recognize when an oppressive system goes too far. On the one hand, we can tolerate a certain amount of oppression because cynicism is built into our souls. Only with extensive conditioning would we bridle against what we perceive as minor encroachments. Most of us would not consider a frontal assault against our oppressor, but would look for other ways to fight the system and the people who abuse us. But it’s an instinct, not a question of effectiveness and efficiency. We have an instinct to assert our humanity while trying to avoid excessive suffering.

What constitutes “excessive suffering” is naturally contextual, as are the things we consider appropriate as assertions of our humanity. We can differentiate between fantasies of “happily ever after” from what is actually likely. Losing that perspective requires serious external effort.

The middle class American culture is the product of generations of such serious effort to pervert the meaning that our conscious minds give to those instincts. What makes it so insidious is how it’s advertised as the most natural meaning. We are bathed in a cultural orientation that makes the physical the ultimate value of everything. Everything is viewed in terms of material cost. And this is so, despite the huge layer of denial that claims to promote transcendent values. What this conditioning does is change the actual meaning we associate with everything, so that transcendent values are handled in terms of material costs. It passes through the same reasoning process as concrete goods and services.

This is why we have this business of “rights” so deeply stained with a lawsuit price tag. This whole thing reduces human nature down to something malleable and measurable. Yet, we know instinctively this is not so. This broad cultural orientation creates a conflict that can never be settled because reality is so thoroughly twisted. Mainstream culture treats neurosis as the norm.

This is the underlying cause of the insanity we jokingly call “political correctness” or “social justice warfare.” It’s the insanity of a legal system that measures “justice” in terms of concrete outcomes, as if justice could be measured objectively. It can never touch the real issue of humanity and heart-led instinct because it denies their existence.

We can trace some of the historical trends that put us in this awful situation. For example, we know that the dark, brooding depressive mind is a genetic trait confined largely to Germanic tribes, a primary source of Western Civilization. Not that such is absent from other racial groups, but it’s how it manifests in their cultures. Suicide is far worse in Western societies at the peak of their success as defined by their own standards, whereas the rest of the world kills themselves when things are going really bad. There are other factors, but these trends are obvious. As we enter this time of tribulation in America, watch the suicide rates and you’ll see a shift in numbers and in who is doing it.

Now, stop and think about which segment of society makes the most noise about “life is precious.” What do they mean by such words? Pull back the layers of goofy mental conditioning and you see “life” defined as property, something with a concrete material value. Of course, that assigned value changes depending on certain predictable factors; not all lives hold the same value.

Keep in mind that we are not talking about economic classes here, but middle class culture versus lower class culture (there is no true upper class culture in America). It’s not that peasants don’t value life, but the meanings of “value” and “life” are entirely different, though the words and language sound the same. Placing a high property value on the contents of a body bag is not the same as valuing human life.

In press releases, we hear a lot of noise about a few dozen military bodies shipped home and it generates a lot of political pressure to change what the military are doing. But nobody gives a thought to the million or so enemies and civilians killed in the same activity. At least, there’s no thought about it until it becomes useful for some other political pressure game. Suddenly war is transformed into either a sacred duty or a horrible evil. Violence is either necessary (and scientific) or it’s inherently sinful. The whole question is polarized and extremist. There can be no sensible middle ground; no compromise is possible. That conflict is a reflection of middle class values. Genuine peasants don’t think that way.

Again, I’ve got more to say about this.

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They Will Always Be There

Posted on September 28, 2017 by ehurst

Christine is still exploring the heart-led path with her fourth installment. She mentions in passing something that was poking at me all day.

A prominent feature of Western mythology is taking oneself too seriously. You aren’t supposed to notice the inherent hypocrisy in Western culture, particularly the strain of culture that dominates today: middle-class materialism. It’s that middle-class hypocrisy that ignores the greater complexity of Western tradition itself, since there was once a genuine upper class, and there has always been a lower class that is ignored. That is, the lower class is ignored until they are needed for cannon fodder. Their unique strain of culture within Western tradition has been ignored and misrepresented; the middles pretend the lowers simply don’t have any culture at all.

Now, that previous paragraph would read like a confusing diversion unless you catch on to where I’m going. If there is anything in Western Civilization worth saving from a biblical moral perspective, it’s the lower class culture stream that will still exist when the West is forgotten. That’s because the lower class stream of culture existed before there was a Western Civilization. Christine notes in the linked post above that history is just a story, and the history offered to us in writing is mostly the story told by those who survived all the battles. That would be the folks who didn’t send their own children to war, but sent peasants.

Then again, middle class has outlasted the upper class, as well. Today you would be hard pressed to find someone Western who is also genuinely upper class in terms of culture. You see, America has never had a true upper class in that sense, and America dominates the image of what it means to be Western. I’m not saying there is no upper class in Western countries, but that there is so much noise from America that you won’t hear much about the rest of the West.

So you’ll hear way too much noise coming from people who are middle class with a pretense of wanting to be upper class. I note in passing that’s almost the defining characteristic of middle class culture: a pretense of wanting to be upper crust, but with a smoking crater in the place where their transcendent values are supposed to be. So it’s not that Western Civilization is so utterly vacuous in moral terms, but the crass materialism of the middle class is all that’s left in human awareness as a whole, particularly in terms of whatever passes for education and common public mythology.

That is what’s dying when I say the West is doomed. That is the thread of human existence under Western tradition that most infuriates God and Creation.

Meanwhile, the peasantry of humanity have always had more in common with each other across civilizations — so much so that it constitutes a sort of civilization in itself that seldom gets any academic attention. And while we cannot forget that mankind is fallen, we also find the Bible tends to be much more respectful of peasantry than just about any other class of humanity. When Jesus talked about passing a camel through the eye of a needle, the context was all about how people who have little to lose are quicker to hear His voice. When He said you will always have poor people in this world, it’s not for reasons popular among the middle classes. It’s because there will always be some folks who aren’t owned by their possessions, people who would rather be poor as the price for moral identity.

And then we have a ton of teaching in the New Testament that calls us to become like that in the sense of learning that your material possessions are never really yours, so stop holding to them so tightly. Of all the things humans can do to move closer to Christ, it’s learning to think like a peasant — the kind of person who has always been marginalized by those who have the loudest voice and most power in human society. It’s not the final answer to moral truth, but it’s a good starting point, a good first step.

I’m going to have more to say on these things because this post didn’t go where I thought it would. Stay tuned.

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Civil Religion and Entertainment

Posted on September 27, 2017 by ehurst

I thought I could avoid it, but someone wants me to address the noise about Trump, the NFL and the National Anthem.

Look, on the one hand we have a bunch of spoiled, entitled entertainers who think they really matter — professional sports teams. The majority of them have no clue just how very far distant they are from the paying fans in terms of morals and such. They are not like the ticket holders at all, and the admiration is highly constrained. There will be a noticeable measure of disaffection; the fragile bond has been broken for many and it cannot be repaired. Look for professional sports — particular those that involve this protest movement — to take a huge financial hit, permanently.

On the other hand we’ve got a blowhard POTUS who at least did make his own fortune. His daddy wasn’t that rich, so Trump did accomplish something on his own. But he’s still a blowhard bully and it’s clearly established that he cannot be trusted to deliver on his promises. He is not a man of principle in any way that matters. Still, he knows what the majority of voters believe about this controversy, so he wins that much. The average Joe and Jane are big on reverence for the flag and other symbols of civic virtue.

We can all see as much, and it really doesn’t matter. The America represented by the flag and other civic rituals is doomed. I am utterly convinced that during my lifetime the US will be broken under God’s wrath, and what’s left will be entirely something else. I’m not saying the symbols will go away, but that the proud nation will suffer major losses that require swallowing some of that pride. Whatever the US has been in the past will be no more. Some other country will take over as the big bully and our status will decline.

This controversy is just a lot of silly noise that distracts from a very serious problem and neither Trump nor the spoiled athletes have a clue.

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Still Juicy and Sweet

Posted on September 26, 2017 by ehurst

Christine is on a roll; her third installment in the series on understanding the heart-led way discusses gates and filters in our human perception. I would reinforce her statement that such things are simply a part of us, but that we are far better off being more aware of them.

On a related note, I can testify that one of the nastiest problems I carried around for years was a huge load of emotional wounds. I was born highly sensitive to human vibes of that sort and easily hurt. Unfortunately, I grew up in a family and subculture that made it a sin to be sensitive like that, so I got no good training on how to turn it into a talent.

It was part of what pushed me near suicide repeatedly until I was near forty years old. There were a lot of things that worked toward my healing, but I assure you that discovering the heart-led way was rather like the crescendo of the symphony that made life worth living, even while I’m quite eager to go be with my Savior. I knew Him as my Savior long before that (age 9) but I could never hear His voice until I knew to listen with my heart.

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A Spoonfull of Crow

Posted on September 25, 2017 by ehurst

I have to confess I didn’t do it right, and I regret my mistake.

The other day my wife and I were at Walmart. A rather large older man approached me. In his hand was visible one of those cheap and manipulative gospel tracts so fashionable with fundamentalist Western Christians. I groaned inwardly and braced myself. What I should have done is turned around inside myself and prepared to evaluate his presentation as an instructor. It was awful. He came across as arrogant and intimidating. I should have threatened him when he approached my wife that way.

The experience stuck in my craw until I realized why it bothered me so much. It wasn’t the social faux pas of evangelizing so aggressively in Walmart, but the intimidation. There was no discernible compassion; this man was just trying to notch his holy gospel gun.

In the future: I need to assume the position of leadership more reflexively. This guy was a boor and needed to know that his approach trashed the gospel.

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Take Another Bite

Posted on September 24, 2017 by ehurst

If you were blessed by Christine’s post the other day, then you really should take the time to read the follow up post. Christine explains how she goes about using her heart’s leadership in her calling.

One of the main takeaways is that you learn to slow down, to give it time. It’s the same for any significant touch of the divine: Take your time. Savor the process and the power. There’s plenty of times you’ll have to make a flash decision, but for most things you should give yourself time to unlearn all the wrong stuff. You have to unlearn false emotional signals so that your mind can organize and implement what God wants from you and for you. In case you didn’t notice, this is how prayer is supposed to work.

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Psalm 150

Posted on September 23, 2017 by ehurst

This is the end of the Hallelujah Hymns and the end of the whole book. It serves honorably to hold that place as the capstone of worship.

Hallelujah! At the very least we should come to the Temple and praise Him. However, there is no place in His whole Creation where praise is out of place. Indeed, let all Creation praise Him together at once. Do you need a reason? Think of the powerful actions He has taken. Contemplate His greatness; you cannot fathom it.

Like a conductor, the psalmist calls first for the brass section to catch our attention with sharp notes. Then he brings up the stringed harps and lyres. He motions for dancers to begin their moves while the timbrels pop and jingle in their hands. Next, he signals to the woodwinds and other strings to raise their voices. Finally comes the crashing crescendo of various cymbals and grand gongs.

Were that not enough, let all breathing creatures raise their voice in earth-shattering praise. Yes, praise the Lord, indeed.

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