“The Existential Despair of Godification”by Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage, October 4, 2022; “Homosexuality is being accepted in prominent conservative, Christian circles. Here’s proof” by Doug Mainwaring, LifeSiteNews, October 7, 2021; “Eastern University Changes Its Doctrines on Marriage” by Terry Mattingly, GetReligion, November 24, 2022
(PDF version available here)
Greenfield is an Israeli-born conservative writer at Frontpage, published by 60’s-Leftist, now conservative, David Horowitz, after he backed Black Panthers and published his periodical Ramparts. (I was then a charter subscriber to Ramparts, to stay up-to-date).
Greenfield begins with a basic insight: “When we stopped believing in God, we started believing we had to become gods.” Adam and Eve tried that and it led them into deadly disasters. Following them, we fail as they did, and we can’t save us from ourselves.
Greenfield illustrates with new books for kids that, he warns, “have to be checked for razor blades. … Take Tikkun Olam Ted.” Tikkun Olam, is a Hebrew way to say, “Do good!”. So, this character, Tikkun Olam Ted, recycles stuff, reuses it and volunteers at an animal shelter. But, Greenfield notes: “G-d never appears in Tikkun Olam Ted. The little boy has been tragically left to be his own god.” And Greenfield tells us why: “Every generation since the Boomers has been raised with the knowledge that they are expected to save a declining world because of the sins of their parents and that there is no higher power that can be expected to help them. Without responsible adults or divinity, the child is both a miniature adult and a little god. The rise of socialism was closely associated with the decline in faith.” So, he says: “The Left is a religion [and] they put their faith in the next generation of angry young activists to do what they could not do.” He cleverly cracks: “That is where Ted and Greta Thunberg come from.” CRT, cries of “climate change” and childhood sexualization are but some of these kids’ big assignments from Leftist cults. Poignantly, Greenfield asks: “How can they supply what they themselves lack?” Of course, they can’t! Their “existential despair spills over into political self-hatred and self-mutilation.” Greenfield sees that, “G-d is the ultimate and final antidote to despair. In His absence, there are only different flavors of despair for those who want to imagine a better world. ‘Godification’ is the great despair lurking at the end of all leftist schemes.”
Greenfield concludes by quoting George Washington’s conviction at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, beyond all that we can do, “the rest is in the hands of God”.
God is, indeed, here, whether or not we acknowledge Him. His reforming grace has been perceived over the centuries, but it’s resisted by all who think that they’ve pinned God down to what they’ve selected to be understood as all He had or has to say to us.
Doug Mainwaring is a journalist at LifeSiteNews, a Canadian Catholic prolife voice. He says: “When I heard that Spencer Klavan would be a speaker at the Classical Learning Test 2021 Summit, I was surprised – shocked really – that a man who is openly homosexual would be featured there. The fact that well-respected Catholic intellectuals would also be speaking at the Summit, and that others are on the CLT’s Board of Academic Advisors, was troubling to me, as troubling as the big incongruency in Spencer’s life. I worried that the presence of Princeton Professor Robert George, University of Dallas Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson, and other well-known Catholic educators would give the appearance of approval of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. More specifically, I worried that young, same-sex-attracted Catholics witnessing the gathering would be free to conclude, ‘it’s OK to be a conservative, Catholic, AND an out and proud gay or lesbian’.”
Mainwaring notes Spencer Klavan as being Oxford educated, conservative, host of The Young Heretics, an author at the conservative Daily Wire, an editor at Claremont Review, and son of conservative Christian writer Andrew Klavan. Mainwaring refers to the fact that Spencer came out as both Christian and gay at age 16 and he’s engaged to marry Joshua Herr, general counsel for The Daily Wire. Klavan is a rising star among young gay Republicans around the evangelical Ric Grenell, Trump’s Ambassador to Germany and Director of National Intelligence. Grenell proudly calls Trump, “the most pro-gay President in American history.” It’s all so out of sync with all of the popular memes about Republicans – not to mention about conservative Christians. Again, for an umpteenth time, the problem is stereotyping into caricatures — not the straightest oflines into truly realistic learning, understanding and discovery of what one didn’t know.
Terry Mattingly is a seasoned Scripps Howard journalist, son of a Southern Baptist pastor, though he’s now Eastern Orthodox. He notes the drift “to the doctrinal left over several decades” at, e.g., the American Baptists’ Eastern University, longtime venue of veteran progressive professors Tony Campolo and the late Ron Sider.
In 1979, I’d asked Tony to keynote EC’s very first summer retreat, ConnECtion1980. He said he didn’t support same-sex couples, so I disinvited him. Finally, Tony changed his view and spoke at 2016’s ConnECtion, yet Peggy, his wife, had already keynoted in 1993. Sider, however, stayed negative on this issue and he passed away in 2022. Now, Eastern University is LGBTQ-friendly, so it’s met opposition from the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, with which it’s long been associated. All roads to the top of any mountain can be rocky and rough, but there’s a wider view from the top!