'Trad wives' is mostly pushed by women who want to be 'trad wives'. Fine by me, although my wife wouldn't identify as such. We have a partnership, we are Catholic...and fairly traditional. As with logs and splinters in eyes, best to focus on your own obligations and allow your spouse to work on their own, as they see it - and see what emerges naturally. However there is only one side that values women as women - and that is the right, conservative, Christian (and Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc) side. The left see society in terms of abstract billiard ball individuals - all Brownian motion - no interdependency, intergenerational ties, sexual complementarity, parent-child complementarity..... The value of women in general (not individual women) is indivisible from motherhood, sisterhood and daughterhood. The same is true of men in general. This is the Natural Law. We start and end there. The corrosive, sulphuric vision of uber-mobile individuals, disembedded from particular families, communities and nations....sovereign, independent from God, and able to choose/decide...a vision that denies any kind of ascription or in Macintyre's words, denies our essence as 'dependent rational animals' -- this is liberalism. It leads, as night follows day, to communism, transhumanism and eventually 'the abolition of man'. I think you can't avoid taking sides Phill. It is very British and lovely, modest, moderate and all that.....but Britain needs a culture war, and it needs to be won definitively by one side -- the side that is post-liberal. The rest is materialism, idolatry and death.
I agree with much of what you say here. I think I might have confused things by talking about the culture wars.
I am not 'sitting on the fence' in the culture wars. Rather, I believe there is only one side for Christians to take -- that is, Christ's. I think Christ transcends and critiques *every* political and cultural movement.
The point I was trying to make in the podcast -- obviously not very well! -- is that even the 'right', which would consider itself to be supporters of tradition and pro-Christian, needs to wake up and realise that there are serious problems within its own ranks. We do not need a political movement in the UK and elsewhere; we need a Christian movement. Without this, any cultural movement is doomed to fail.
Hmm a Christian movement which informed any of these issues would be a political movement. Unavoidably. And I think yes, we need it. We should aspire to the city of God. But we can’t avoid dealing with the city of man
Indeed, and I think it is right for Christians to be engaged and involved in politics. But I think we must constantly hold up our earthly 'tribe' to the light of Christ. And we must recognise that politics has its limitations. Without some kind of Christian revival, I'm not sure that it's possible to have a revival of true conservative thinking. Conservative thinking is really predicated on having a Christian people - I can't remember who it was who observed that the laws of the US depended on a Christian people. I think Os Guinness quoted it in The Gravedigger Files.
As Christians, we also need to realise that our primary enemy is spiritual, and thus not one which can be fought via political means. I've written about this several times, e.g. here - https://phillsacre.substack.com/p/how-we-can-fight-back
I'm thinking particularly of the quote from Schaeffer:
"Secondly, if I am trying to live a Christian life while sitting in the chair of unfaith, I am only playing at it, rather than being in it, because the real battle is not against flesh and blood, but is in the ‘heavenlies’, and I cannot partake in that battle in the flesh… When I try to live a Christian life while sitting in the chair of unfaith, I am just playing at war. I am not in contact with the real battle at all."
I have an 11 year old son starting secondary school in September. We’ve wondered what to say about pornography etc that might cut through. The one we’re wondering about is to say (1) men and women are different, (2) men have a responsibility to protect and defend, which comes with some sort of authority (honestly really not sure how to frame that!!), and (3) the whole sexual culture seems to be pushing men and women against proper family formation. We thought that might be more likely to work. It’s the kind of chat we’d have to be careful with, because it’s not something we can easily articulate (and we have enough solidly liberal priors that we don’t really understand it either), and if he half repeats it at school he’ll end up in some sort bother. Got daughters too but they’re younger so that’s a problem for a future day!!
We’re not sure really what to say. Thanks for the thoughtful thoughts.
Hi Hannah, yes it's tricky. We have an 11yo daughter, who is also due to start school in September (although we have decided to home school). It is difficult to know what to say about these things. It is important to remember that children learn by example, so if their parents have a healthy relationship, that will stand them in good stead in later life. That's a big problem I think with a lot of teenagers at the moment.
'Trad wives' is mostly pushed by women who want to be 'trad wives'. Fine by me, although my wife wouldn't identify as such. We have a partnership, we are Catholic...and fairly traditional. As with logs and splinters in eyes, best to focus on your own obligations and allow your spouse to work on their own, as they see it - and see what emerges naturally. However there is only one side that values women as women - and that is the right, conservative, Christian (and Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc) side. The left see society in terms of abstract billiard ball individuals - all Brownian motion - no interdependency, intergenerational ties, sexual complementarity, parent-child complementarity..... The value of women in general (not individual women) is indivisible from motherhood, sisterhood and daughterhood. The same is true of men in general. This is the Natural Law. We start and end there. The corrosive, sulphuric vision of uber-mobile individuals, disembedded from particular families, communities and nations....sovereign, independent from God, and able to choose/decide...a vision that denies any kind of ascription or in Macintyre's words, denies our essence as 'dependent rational animals' -- this is liberalism. It leads, as night follows day, to communism, transhumanism and eventually 'the abolition of man'. I think you can't avoid taking sides Phill. It is very British and lovely, modest, moderate and all that.....but Britain needs a culture war, and it needs to be won definitively by one side -- the side that is post-liberal. The rest is materialism, idolatry and death.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment!
I agree with much of what you say here. I think I might have confused things by talking about the culture wars.
I am not 'sitting on the fence' in the culture wars. Rather, I believe there is only one side for Christians to take -- that is, Christ's. I think Christ transcends and critiques *every* political and cultural movement.
The point I was trying to make in the podcast -- obviously not very well! -- is that even the 'right', which would consider itself to be supporters of tradition and pro-Christian, needs to wake up and realise that there are serious problems within its own ranks. We do not need a political movement in the UK and elsewhere; we need a Christian movement. Without this, any cultural movement is doomed to fail.
Hmm a Christian movement which informed any of these issues would be a political movement. Unavoidably. And I think yes, we need it. We should aspire to the city of God. But we can’t avoid dealing with the city of man
Indeed, and I think it is right for Christians to be engaged and involved in politics. But I think we must constantly hold up our earthly 'tribe' to the light of Christ. And we must recognise that politics has its limitations. Without some kind of Christian revival, I'm not sure that it's possible to have a revival of true conservative thinking. Conservative thinking is really predicated on having a Christian people - I can't remember who it was who observed that the laws of the US depended on a Christian people. I think Os Guinness quoted it in The Gravedigger Files.
As Christians, we also need to realise that our primary enemy is spiritual, and thus not one which can be fought via political means. I've written about this several times, e.g. here - https://phillsacre.substack.com/p/how-we-can-fight-back
I'm thinking particularly of the quote from Schaeffer:
"Secondly, if I am trying to live a Christian life while sitting in the chair of unfaith, I am only playing at it, rather than being in it, because the real battle is not against flesh and blood, but is in the ‘heavenlies’, and I cannot partake in that battle in the flesh… When I try to live a Christian life while sitting in the chair of unfaith, I am just playing at war. I am not in contact with the real battle at all."
I have an 11 year old son starting secondary school in September. We’ve wondered what to say about pornography etc that might cut through. The one we’re wondering about is to say (1) men and women are different, (2) men have a responsibility to protect and defend, which comes with some sort of authority (honestly really not sure how to frame that!!), and (3) the whole sexual culture seems to be pushing men and women against proper family formation. We thought that might be more likely to work. It’s the kind of chat we’d have to be careful with, because it’s not something we can easily articulate (and we have enough solidly liberal priors that we don’t really understand it either), and if he half repeats it at school he’ll end up in some sort bother. Got daughters too but they’re younger so that’s a problem for a future day!!
We’re not sure really what to say. Thanks for the thoughtful thoughts.
Hi Hannah, yes it's tricky. We have an 11yo daughter, who is also due to start school in September (although we have decided to home school). It is difficult to know what to say about these things. It is important to remember that children learn by example, so if their parents have a healthy relationship, that will stand them in good stead in later life. That's a big problem I think with a lot of teenagers at the moment.
Thanks for commenting!
Very true, sobering thought - we try. Good luck with the home schooling preparation!