Criticism Evasion as a Means of Defending “Christianity as a Package”
The responses to my recent posts criticizing logos-centered Christians tend to have one thing in common—they avoid the criticism within those posts altogether.
What were the criticisms in those posts of mine?
My chief criticism in Essentially Leftist Logos-Lovers Railing Against Leftism focused on the observed tendency of trad-minded Christians to overemphasize externals at the expense of internal personal discernment, making such externally-oriented Christians prone to getting embroiled in leftist political and social narratives in the predetermined manner those leftist narratives dictated. I suggested that trad-minded Christians would do well to temper their external orientation with a little more internal focus, particularly in this time and place, where the left controls virtually all that comprises the external.
In On the Matter of Discerning Babies and Bathwater , I made specific reference to a trad-Christian blogger who had posted a positive account of engaging with AI on the subject of God. I bluntly opined that asking AI about God amounted to spiritual perversion—as in, the spirit being turned in the wrong direction—and implored those who had interacted with AI on the subject of God to reflect upon their motivations and actions. I cited the lauding of AI as another example of the trad-minded becoming enmeshed in leftist paradigms. Oddly enough, the same Christian blogger agreed with my criticism but then simultaneously and unceremoniously dismissed my observation—which he had wholeheartedly agreed with— as lacking authority.
The Facts and Logic to Which Logos-Lovers Submit concentrated on the recent assassination of a so-called right-wing political and social commentator and the subsequent and, sadly, predictable reaction logos-centered Christians displayed following the event. Behaving precisely like the push-button automatons the left knows them to be, logos-centered Christians dutifully reacted in the exact way the leftist narrative wanted them to—by fomenting fear and declaring war.
The criticisms in the three posts above could best be summarized as follows:
Many trad-minded Christians pride themselves on submitting to the authority of fact and logic, which they often refer to as the Logos and then equate with Jesus; however, their thinking and behavior suggest that they are far more prone to submitting to the authority of leftist “facts” and manipulative leftist narratives than they are to anything remotely related to the Logos they promote and hold so dear.
None of the responses to my posts about the blind spot inherent in most logos-centered Christians dealt with that criticism directly.
On the contrary, they avoided that criticism altogether and focused instead on misrepresenting Romantic Christian “concepts” in the following way:
Romantic Christians reject all external authority and fact, including things like math and the coffee shop down the street.Romantic Christians live entirely in their heads.Romantic Christians are innately anti-social and anti-society.The Romantic Christian position of tempering authority through personal discernment leads to solipsism.The Romantic Christian position of examining and questioning tradition lacks intellectual and spiritual humility and is just plain nuts. Personal discernment ultimately leads to isolation and atomization.Because they question and/or reject most Christian externals, Romantic Christians cannot “really” be Christians. In fact, they are worse than Gnostics and are essentially atheists.Romantic Christians don't believe in the classical theist definition of God; hence, they don't believe in God at all.
The above are all criticisms in their own right, I suppose; however, none of them address the core criticism of my “logos-lovers” posts.
Now there has to be a reason for this, and there is, as Dr. Charlton succinctly explains below:
Most Christians are first-and-foremost institutionally-led; and they assume and assert that Christianity is A Package.
Therefore, it is regarded as a stark choice between either affiliating to a Christian church and supporting totalitarian evil, or else rejecting totalitarian evil and therefore rejecting "Christianity".
Note: This is the last I will say about this matter for a while. The thing the trad-minded don't seem to understand is that I am not out to mock them "for the hell of it." I criticize because I hope to inspire self-reflection -- but it seems that such self-reflection will likely never occur. Such is the nature of freedom.
What were the criticisms in those posts of mine?
My chief criticism in Essentially Leftist Logos-Lovers Railing Against Leftism focused on the observed tendency of trad-minded Christians to overemphasize externals at the expense of internal personal discernment, making such externally-oriented Christians prone to getting embroiled in leftist political and social narratives in the predetermined manner those leftist narratives dictated. I suggested that trad-minded Christians would do well to temper their external orientation with a little more internal focus, particularly in this time and place, where the left controls virtually all that comprises the external.
In On the Matter of Discerning Babies and Bathwater , I made specific reference to a trad-Christian blogger who had posted a positive account of engaging with AI on the subject of God. I bluntly opined that asking AI about God amounted to spiritual perversion—as in, the spirit being turned in the wrong direction—and implored those who had interacted with AI on the subject of God to reflect upon their motivations and actions. I cited the lauding of AI as another example of the trad-minded becoming enmeshed in leftist paradigms. Oddly enough, the same Christian blogger agreed with my criticism but then simultaneously and unceremoniously dismissed my observation—which he had wholeheartedly agreed with— as lacking authority.
The Facts and Logic to Which Logos-Lovers Submit concentrated on the recent assassination of a so-called right-wing political and social commentator and the subsequent and, sadly, predictable reaction logos-centered Christians displayed following the event. Behaving precisely like the push-button automatons the left knows them to be, logos-centered Christians dutifully reacted in the exact way the leftist narrative wanted them to—by fomenting fear and declaring war.
The criticisms in the three posts above could best be summarized as follows:
Many trad-minded Christians pride themselves on submitting to the authority of fact and logic, which they often refer to as the Logos and then equate with Jesus; however, their thinking and behavior suggest that they are far more prone to submitting to the authority of leftist “facts” and manipulative leftist narratives than they are to anything remotely related to the Logos they promote and hold so dear.
None of the responses to my posts about the blind spot inherent in most logos-centered Christians dealt with that criticism directly.
On the contrary, they avoided that criticism altogether and focused instead on misrepresenting Romantic Christian “concepts” in the following way:
Romantic Christians reject all external authority and fact, including things like math and the coffee shop down the street.Romantic Christians live entirely in their heads.Romantic Christians are innately anti-social and anti-society.The Romantic Christian position of tempering authority through personal discernment leads to solipsism.The Romantic Christian position of examining and questioning tradition lacks intellectual and spiritual humility and is just plain nuts. Personal discernment ultimately leads to isolation and atomization.Because they question and/or reject most Christian externals, Romantic Christians cannot “really” be Christians. In fact, they are worse than Gnostics and are essentially atheists.Romantic Christians don't believe in the classical theist definition of God; hence, they don't believe in God at all.
The above are all criticisms in their own right, I suppose; however, none of them address the core criticism of my “logos-lovers” posts.
Now there has to be a reason for this, and there is, as Dr. Charlton succinctly explains below:
Most Christians are first-and-foremost institutionally-led; and they assume and assert that Christianity is A Package.
Therefore, it is regarded as a stark choice between either affiliating to a Christian church and supporting totalitarian evil, or else rejecting totalitarian evil and therefore rejecting "Christianity".
Note: This is the last I will say about this matter for a while. The thing the trad-minded don't seem to understand is that I am not out to mock them "for the hell of it." I criticize because I hope to inspire self-reflection -- but it seems that such self-reflection will likely never occur. Such is the nature of freedom.
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