a moral revolution of values.

Above:  The View from the Camera Built Into a Computer on my Desk, June 14, 2020

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We live in times of rapid social and political change.  Change–even that which is morally proper–causes disorientation and disturbance.  Sometimes we ought to be disturbed.  Injustice ought to disturb us. The root word of “conservative” is “conserve.”  Whether one’s conservatism is morally defensible depends on what one seeks to conserve.  Sometimes one should conserve x.  In certain times, reform is proper.  On other occasions, however, only a revolution is morally defensible.  Yet, even in those cases, nobility must extend beyond the cause and encompass the methods, also.

Call me politically correct, if you wish, O reader.  Or call me a radical or a fool.  If you call me a radical and a revolutionary for justice, I will accept the compliment.  I support what Martin Luther King, Jr., called

I favor the building of a society in which people matter more than money and property.  I favor social and political standards that brook no discrimination and bigotry while granting violators of those standards the opportunity to repent.  I favor altering society and institutions, inculcating in them the awareness that keeping some people “in their place,” that is, subordinate, underpaid, poorly educated, et cetera, harms society as a whole.  I support building up the whole, and individuals in that context.  I oppose celebrating slavery, discrimination, racism, and hatred, whether past or present.  I stand (socially distanced and wearing a mask, of course) with all those, especially of the younger generations, who are rising up peacefully for justice.  The young will, overall, have an easier time adapting to morally necessary change than many members of the older generations will, no matter how devout and well-intentioned many older people may be.  To quote a cliché,

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

St. Paul the Apostle offered timeless advice for confronting evil:

Do not be mastered by evil, but master evil with good.

–Romans 12:21 (The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985)

May all who seek a more just society pursue that goal with shrewdness, courage, and goodness.  To create a better society without incorporating goodness into methodology is impossible, after all.  May all who reshape society remain positive and focused on the morally justifiable.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 15, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF JOHN ELLERTON, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER AND TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF CARL HEINRICH VON BOGATSKY, HUNGARIAN-GERMAN LUTHERAN HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF DOROTHY FRANCES BLOMFIELD GURNEY, ENGLISH POET AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF SAINT LANDELINUS OF VAUX, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT; SAINT AUBERT OF CAMBRAI, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP; SAINT URSMAR OF LOBBES, ROMAN CATHOLIC ABBOT AND MISSIONARY BISHOP; AND SAINTS DOMITIAN, HADELIN, AND DODO OF LOBBES, ROMAN CATHOLIC MONKS

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Advertisement

If one has a siege mentality, one should seek to rid oneself of it.

I recall hearing a true story years ago, at either Georgia Southern University or The University of Georgia.  A professor of Latin American history had, in one lesson, referred to abuses in which the Roman Catholic Church was complicit.  A few days later, the department head received an angry telephone call from the mother of one of the students.  The professor had allegedly insulted Roman Catholicism.  His (the professor’s) source had been the Roman Catholic Church, which had acknowledged those sins.  Pope John Paul II had publicly apologized for them.  The Roman Catholic student in question and his mother seemed unaware of this.   The department head understood that the student and his mother had reacted out of a siege mentality.  Being a Roman Catholic in the Bible Belt is not like being a Roman Catholic in many other regions.

I have a way of speaking objectively and dispassionately.  One of the criticisms I have heard of myself over the years is that I am too matter-of-fact.  The criticism seems odd to me.  How are remaining grounded in objective reality and staying calm negative?  I have a long track record of speaking objectively and calmly in classrooms, especially about religious history, and of offending students.  The fault has been with the students and their siege mentalities, not with me.  Some of them, I know, have thought of me as an antitheist.  And I have known myself to be a devout Episcopalian!

In the 1990s, when I was undergraduate at Valdosta State University, I explained a piece of church history to a fellow resident of my dormitory.  I, citing verified historical dates, explained that the Church determined the table of contents of the New Testament.  I was objectively correct.  The other resident took my word for it.  He also took offense.  He asked, “How dare they?”  His Christian fundamentalism had led him to assume that the New Testament had descended from on high, fully formed.  Church history and his religion were incompatible.  As Karen Armstrong has written, fundamentalism is ahistorical.

For the record, the Church did an excellent job of determining the table of contents of the New Testament.  They got it right.  That is my opinion and statement of faith on the subject.

I have also triggered a fundamentalist by pointing out St. Paul’s use of allegorical interpretations of scripture, as well as the presence of Greek philosophy in the New Testament.  I was not being critical of St. Paul or of the Letter to the Hebrews.  Rather, I merely stated objective reality regarding them.

A siege mentality in faith and religion stands in the way between one and the calm recognition of objective reality.  Facts are facts.  Objective reality is what it is.  We can know much of objective reality, given sufficient information.  (Call me an Enlightenment-style modernist if you like; I will accept the compliment.)  And more of us need to reserve outrage for offenses (such as racism, police brutality, etc.) that should make us livid.

Here ends the lesson.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 4, 2020 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT STANISLAW KOSTKA STAROWIEYSKI, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR, 1941

THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS CARACCIOLO, COFOUNDER OF THE MINOR CLERKS REGULAR

THE FEAST OF JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF PEORIA THEN TITULAR BISHOP OF SEYTHOLPOLIS

THE FEAST OF SAINT PETROC, WELSH PRINCE, ABBOT, AND MISSIONARY

THE FEAST OF THOMAS RAYMOND KELLY, U.S. QUAKER MYSTIC AND PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++