Yeah, that was a rather pathetic article wasn't it? I liked this part best

Tax cuts or no tax cuts, a party that can be roused in time of deep crisis only by fear and tribalism—a party that a supposed moderate is now deeding to its most extreme elements—can scarcely serve as a safe home to liberty or the voters who cherish it.

I read that as describing the Democratic Party, but I think the author was intending it to be about the GOP. After, who is it that has "fear" with regard to Palin? Or Chimpy McBushitler?

Certainly there the conservatives / GOP contain tribals and panicked, but I think it's clear which party in the large has those characteristics, and it's not the GOP.

When I was young all respectable Americans were Christian, or Jewish. So religion was not a political issue. Now we are moving into a very different era, and it is hard for many people, of both Right and Left, to deal with the change. And they act like something shocking and illegitimate has happened when religion becomes political.

Which is silly. For one thing there have been plenty of times when religion has been a powerful factor in our politics.

More importantly, the logic of Christianity is utterly radical and uncompromising. This is masked when "respectable Christianity" is the norm, but it is always there. Secularists have been pushing Christians hard, and it's pretty silly for them to cry "unfair" when we start pushing back.

Sager is using the style of the Left, that is, cramming a novelty down people's throats (I betcha he supports gay marriage) and then immediately saying to those who would like to stick with the opinion of all bygone ages, "How dare you IMPOSE your ideas on other people!"

Actually, even when I was young religion dominated politics. It's just that it dominated so successfully that it didn't have to do anything. No politician ever attacked Christian morality or worldview. The "Christian Right" was there all along, but no one used to pick any fights with it...

Your "broad-brush religious" folks thing definitely explains why I generally align myself with you philosophically, even though I ain't religious anymore at all...those who cherish the Great Books of Western Civ., and those who get a lump in their throats when they hear the Star Spangled Banner at the ball game. That is, those who think there are things bigger than the almighty self, things which demand an attitude of humility and willingness to sacrifice...indeed. I adore the Church, but happen not to believe what it teaches about God et al, so even though I'm an athiest, I still consider myself your ally in the larger fight...

(Though I will admit, I'm far more comfortable with the social state of affairs and where it's heading than you are...I'm all for the debasement of popular culture, because in part, it's always been debased, and we've generally done just fine...but that's for another day...)

Atheist. Yeah, surrrre you are...

Well, I'm not saying it's my final answer on the topic, but it is how I see the world as of right now...I will say, I would not presume to say I understand how the universe operates - but for now, that's my best guess...

For me, what you call patriotism or reverence for tradition appears to be a species of idolatry.

I think of traditions as the cultural analogue of emotions, which, although arational, are nonetheless an integral part of rationality (cf. Damasio, Descartes' Error). But, just as with emotions, since they are largely arational, arising through experience as they do, traditions must be tested ("proved") rather than being uncritically accepted.

For me, as a Quaker, this testing is an elegant recursive process, beginning with the fundamental measure of the leadings of the Inward Christ, the "light which enlightens every man" (Jn. 1:9), themselves informed by and tested against the community and its traditions. It's obviously not a simple process to decide when to stop the recursion (perhaps it never stops until one's heart does), but that's part of the difficulty of living a life in faith. The ultimate Ground is God, and a faithful life is lived in freefall, ever shedding attachments (idols) that would otherwise slow our approach to the ultimate bedrock of our being.

But I think we may be in more agreement than not about politics and Christianity. As my spiritual director (a Christian) says, "To say that 'Jesus is Lord' is to make a political statement."

This is obvious in the first sentence of the first surviving Gospel. The word euaggelion (good news), prior to its adoption by Christians, referred to a proclamation--generally of victory or of a great accomplishment benefiting the people of the Empire--issued by the emperor. For a modern example, consider Bush on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln, or plug in your own presidential example.

Thus, the opening of Mark's Gospel ("The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God") is subversive from the start. (It compounds the felony by also immediately claiming a title that belonged only to the emperor, "Son of God.")

Sorry, but I think you and your fellow Quakers are deceiving yourselves.

Your "inner lights" track much too closely with the fads of left-wing politics. Did those Quakers who served so valiantly in WWII think patriotism was "idolatrous?" Did they recoil in disgust when FDR sailed about on battleships and warplanes, posed with generals, and announced America's victories with gusto on the radio? Did they hate overthrowing fascist dictators? I seriously doubt it. Quakers became anti-American exactly when the Left became anti-American.

"Traditions must be tested ("proved") rather than being uncritically accepted...." Quakers have been around for about 400 years. Have they been testing the traditions of marriage and abortion and infanticide all this while? And then, ka-ching! By pure coincidence decide to drop those idolatrous old traditions overboard at exactly the moment the international Left came to the same conclusion? Who you trying to kid?

And gay marriage and abortion are now being sold as "traditions." That is, they are pushed as rights implicit in the Constitution, rather than as innovations. SO, you claim you test traditions with that "elegant recursive process." Are you are going through this process with these new traditions? Are Quakers in general? Hmm? I find it hard to picture. Are you and your Quakers considering "shedding attachments" like Mr Obama? Or Anthropogenic Global Warming? Ha.

You're just using the term "idolatry" to mean whatever you don't happen to like at the moment. But idolatry means giving something the worship due to God. Anything can be idolatry if it is in the wrong place in ones heart. Helping the poor can be idolatry. But, those same things can be NOT idolatry if they are not worshipped in place of God. So saying "patriotism or reverence for tradition appears to be a species of idolatry..." is logically invalid. My patriotism could be idolatry, but you have no way of knowing unless you can read my mind. Likewise your Quakerism and lefty politics look suspiciously like idolatry to me, but I have no way of knowing.

Of course the Gospel is subversive. And one of the problems of having a "Christendom" has been that it obscures that fact. Now that the culture is turning against the Church, we are seeing various things with painful new clarity. [link]

Where will you and the Quakers line up when they start putting Catholic priests in prison for violating people's "rights?" Or Catholic doctors who won't go along with the "right" to infanticide? So far you are solidly with those who want to ram new "traditions" down people's throats. I'm not much impressed with those "inner lights."

Newman taught that human imagination is corrosive. That it will dissolve anything. That's why there are 30,000+ Protestant denominations, and a new one every 10 minutes. That is why God gave his Church an infallible teaching Magisterium. Otherwise the whole Christian project would have dissolved into muddle and pridefulness. (Infallibility is not a boastful claim, but one of utmost humility---that the Church will not innovate, but stick with the Deposit of Faith.)

When you rely on yourself you have no ballast. Your mind unconsciously aligns itself with each new fad and fancy, like teenagers who all simultaneously discover, on their own, that pink-leopard-skin clothes are awesome. I'm wondering if it isn't the "inner light" that is idolatrous. It looks from the outside very much like you are worshipping your own imagination.

The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.
-- GK Chesterton

...Man seeks to escape from the insecurity of freedom and finiteness by asserting his power beyond the limits of his nature. Limited by his finiteness, he pretends that he is not limited. Sensing his transcendence, man "assumes that he can gradually transcend [his finiteness] until his mind becomes identical with universal mind. All his intellectual and cultural pursuits . . . become infected with the sin of pride.. . . The religious dimension of sin," says Dr. Niebuhr, "is man's rebellion against God. . . . The moral and social dimension of sin is injustice..."

-- Whittaker Chambers, Faith for a Lenten Age

Most of your reply is just a collection of straw men based on an utter lack of understanding of what you're talking about. You're obviously unaware of the intense wrestling with those subjects going on among Quakers.

But this stood out for me:

My patriotism could be idolatry, but you have no way of knowing unless you can read my mind.

No, I can't (and that's a funny statement coming from someone who "mind reads" constantly, ascribing the darkest of motives to those with whom he disagrees).

But I can discern the fruits of your patriotism and reverence for tradition, as they are displayed in virtually every post on your blog: enmity, anger, party spirit, and an utter lack of charity, all of them among the hallmarks of the idolater according to the prophets and Jesus himself. Thorns, not grapes, and brambles, not figs.

"He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes." (1 John 2:9-11)

"You're obviously unaware of the intense wrestling with those subjects going on among Quakers."

Of course I'm unaware. I'm an outsider. YOU are my main window on the Quakers, and you have never shown the slightest sign of this "wrestling." In fact my comment would have been a perfect moment for you to do so!

If the Quakers are really grappling with this, show me. There must be evidence. I will retract my statements and apologize. I would be happy to learn that Quakers are more honest than they appear from the outside.

In fact, if Quakers really are "wrestling," then they will welcome an outsider's critique! That's the way to focus a debate, and clarify issues.

Suggestion: Why don't you pass my comment around, and stir up some "wrestling?" Show it to your meeting or your advisor. (I'll be happy to re-write it without extraneous matter.)