April 10, 2005
BLOODY CROSSROADS:
At the crossroads again: A religious people face a secular elite (Jack Kelly, 4/10/05, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
R.C. Sproul, the prominent Protestant pastor and theologian, thinks the Terri Schiavo case marks a huge, perhaps irreversible, moral decline:
"Many years ago, Harold Lindsell described America's culture after the revolution of the 1960s as 'neo-pagan culture.' I think now what Terri Schiavo's death marks is the transition to a neo-barbarian culture," Sproul said. [...][W]e've been at this crossroads often before. Most of the great events in our history have followed religious revivals.
The Great Awakening, triggered by preachers Jonathan Edwards, Gilbert Tennent and (especially) George Whitefield, likely provided the spark that ignited the American Revolution. Many historians "argue that the First Great Awakening was a sort of 'dress rehearsal' for the American Revolution -- that participating in a religious upheaval primed an entire generation of colonials to support a political revolution," University of Delaware history professor Christine Heyrman has written.
A second Awakening led to the antislavery movement, the formation of the Republican Party and the Civil War. A third religious revival spawned the Progressive movement.
Noting the explosive growth of the mega-churches in the suburbs, University of Chicago economic historian Robert William Fogel thinks we're in the midst of a fourth Great Awakening. As a liberal, he's concerned about it. He'd like the energy being poured into spiritual renewal to be applied to more secular concerns.
Judicial imperialism has long been the last refuge of a political establishment that is on its way out.
The crossroads metaphor is especially useful because it's where you go to cut a deal with the Devil too, which is the other option. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 10, 2005 5:57 PM
" As a liberal, he's concerned about it. He'd like the energy being poured into spiritual renewal to be applied to more secular concerns."
Translation— those yokels aren't paying attention to me any more. Don't they realize that my causes are the only ones that matter?
Speaking of crossroads, OJ, you might want to check out Sherman Alexie's "Reservation Blues", a novel featuring Robert Johnson as a kind of salvation figure on the rez. Alexie is a bit of an Indian Bellow, though, as his richly-developed characters are typically somewhere in the process of moving beyond their tribal routes, with their sense-of-self dangling between two cultures. I can never get too much of that theme, but you seem to find it intellectually and emotionally wimpy.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 10, 2005 9:37 PM"Tribal routes" could have been a semi-clever pun, but was in fact a (Freudian?) mistake.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 10, 2005 9:40 PMhe's mildly amusing:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/346/
Posted by: oj at April 10, 2005 9:42 PMRez Blues is superior to the short-story collection you reviewed, although there were some excellent stories in that book. (And "B-", after all, is far more generous than you've been with several of the "great works".) It's also a quick, fun read, especially for one who's into pop music.
Posted by: ghostcat at April 10, 2005 10:10 PMIsn't that the way it always happens? Some energetic group gets going and everyone else starts to criticize. This Robert William Fogel should start a mega-church of his own.
Oh, that's right. He's a professor at a state university...
Posted by: Randall Voth at April 11, 2005 3:53 AMThe Schiavo brouhaha may be the instance that brings the tin-eared Bush brothers up short.
Bush II's banal generalities play well until you get down to cases.
He made a terrible blunder on Schiavo, getting down to a real case, and Americans were 3:1 appalled.
I don't know if he can recover from this self-inflicted wound.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 11, 2005 3:38 PMYeah, it's over...again...
Posted by: oj at April 11, 2005 3:41 PM"I don't know if he can recover from this self-inflicted wound."
And that is where the Left and the Dems have found themselves-- the ony way they can see themselves regaining power is to hope that their opponents "self-inflicted wounds" do them in. Because the Left and the Dems are powerless to inflict any wounds of their own.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 11, 2005 9:39 PMAnd the "wounds" that the Harrys perceive are why he keeps beating them.
Posted by: oj at April 11, 2005 10:47 PMIt was a pretty close election.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at April 13, 2005 3:29 PMNot. There are 30 states the GOP almost can't lose.
Posted by: oj at April 13, 2005 3:34 PM