Matt’s Marvelous Mailbag seeks to provide marginally adequate answers to much better questions about politics, economics, social life, theology, or any potpourri you see fit to have answered. Send questions to mailbag.bereans@gmail.com.  

What’s this? A mailbag on Tuesday? “Burn him at the stakes for heresy!” I know, I know, but hey I’ve been traveling a lot, so I think I deserve this one. I should also mention that I’ll be off next week due to an extended conference, so you may take that news with as much elation or despair as you see fit. Until then, let’s see what the mailbag has for us.

Q: Marcus Aurelius asks: “Do you think Christianity is subject to the “Not True Scotsmen” fallacy? A lot of Christians are eager to pull the “they weren’t really Christians” card. Many Christians are horrified by the Spanish Inquisition, but at the time it was widely supported. Socialists do this too with the Soviet Union. Thoughts?”

TL;DR: The “No True Scotsman” fallacy may be relevant, and there may also be a true Scotsman.

A: Well, you do have a point that Christians can easily fall victim to the fallacy, though I would expand that to basically everyone. You say Spanish Inquisition, I say Pol Pot. Hindus say ISIS, and Muslims say Hindu extremists. Palestinians say Lebanon war; Israel says Hamas and Hezbollah. Obviously there are extremes, but notice that even admitting that implies that there is a true normal. It may not be an obvious, true normal, but it does seem to be there.

There’s a lot that could be said, but ultimately for Christians there are two primary principles at work here:

1. Truth is knowable.
2. True Christianity can be found in the Scriptures, particularly in the life of Christ.

Work through the assumptions behind these two principles, and this is pretty much what you end up with. I’ll say this much; you are right to point out that many people parade around with the “true Christianity” flag in ways that I think are demonstrably against what Christ taught. The Spanish Inquisition would be an obvious example. The grand task then is to study the words of Christ and mirror his own example in our lives. “Oh but Matt, Scripture is so complex and paradoxical; how can anyone really know true Christianity?” Well, I guess we’ll just have to do some debate, deep study, and meditation then, won’t we? If you’re working off the assumption that truth is always easily found, I’m afraid you’re due for a bubble-popping. Let me take this opportunity once again to plug the Naked Bible Podcast with Mike Heiser for those of you who are particularly inclined to deep Bible dives.

Being a postmodernist about this, as with most other things, is simply untenable. Even if you really think truth is unknowable, you don’t act that way, or at least I hope to God you don’t. Christians are not just making it up as we go along. We have the texts, we have textual critics, we have biblical scholars, we have pastors, we have philosopher-theologians, we have the example of Christ, we have the guidance of the Holy Spirit — in short, we have ample material to work with and develop a strong case for a true Christianity. Yes, there will be disagreements, but that is hardly a reason to declare that no true form of Christianity actually exists. I’m also not saying this is easy or that any one person besides Christ will ever figure it out this side of eternity. Fortunately, that’s not what Christ calls us to. He calls us to faithfulness as we wait for Him to complete the good work in us that He began.

A fun anecdote here: Did you know Tertullian fought his whole life to include 1 Enoch in the canon, and towards the end of his life he surrendered the fight because he believed the Spirit would guide the church to truth over time? He basically ended up saying, “Welp, the church hasn’t included it, so I must have gone wrong somewhere.” Anyway, it’s fascinating to me.

Q: Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, Mayor of the Palaces of Neustria and Austrasia asks: “Thoughts on the NBA Draft in general or your Cavaliers specifically? Is Beilein off to a good start? Can the Pelicans contend?”

A: Ever since the good old days when Greg Oden became the #1 draft pick and proceeded to fizzle out like a defective sparkler, I’ve come to take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to the NBA draft. I was a bit despondent about the Cavs’ place in the draft since we were projected to go #3. Don’t get me wrong, the #5 pick is nothing to sniff at, but, my goodness, if there was ever a year to get a top three pick (ok, maybe I am forecasting a bit). Anyway, I have faith in Beilein for now; I may despise the team up north, but I am not above admitting that he coached them to some measurable success.

As for the rest of the league, I’m really interested to see how the Lakers and the Nets shape up. Zion should be fun, but I have a sneaking feeling he won’t carry the Pelicans to victory right away. As I said in a recent mailbag, one of the more interesting teams to watch in my opinion is actually Golden State, just to see how they rebound from losing the championship and several of their better players. Regardless, I think we’ll have quite the season on our hand.

Q: Pepin also asks: “Can the US take effective action against Iran for their attacks on oil tankers within the rules of the global community or must the US choose between effectiveness and the global rule of law? Are the reported cyber battles significant and/or publicly legitimate actions by the US?”

A: Can the US take effective action? Yes. Will they take effective action? That remains to be seen. I’m fairly confident that we don’t know the full spectrum of measures and strategies being deployed right now, the military being rather recalcitrant to broadcast its every move to the world. That being said, I think what needs to happen at a base level is for the US to draw a clear red-line and actually enforce it because Iran will push right up to that line. The other thing to keep in mind is that Iran seems to be angling for European sympathy on the one hand and a possible flip in the White House on the other hand. Obviously, no one can unilaterally bend the US elections to their foreign policy objectives, but Europe might be another story. Iran is far from stable, and if the Europeans stop sympathizing with them, things could turn south for Iran very quickly.

Q: Pepin finally asks: “What are your thoughts on distributism?”

A: Well, Pepin, I must commend you. You caught me completely unawares as to what you meant, and I had to go hunting for information on what distributism is. For those who are also confused, I would recommend this article as a nice summary. Assuming you’ve read that article, here are my two brief thoughts based on a surface level reading:

1. Consider this part of distributism: “The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good. Put simply, the principle of subsidiarity rests on the assumption that the rights of small communities—e.g., families or neighbourhoods—should not be violated by the intervention of larger communities—e.g., the state or centralized bureaucracies.” That much I agree with to a large extent, and I suspect most Westernized people would have a natural bent towards something like that as well. So far as that statement is taken in a political context, I see no reason why most conservatives wouldn’t give a hearty three cheers. That’s a fundamental principle of ordered liberty. What one means by ‘rights’ is a fair question to ask, but I’m largely in agreement with it.
2. This part is where I’m more concerned: “In an ideal world every man would own the land on which, and the tools with which, he worked. In an ideal world he would control his own destiny by having control over the means to his livelihood. In practical terms, the following would all be distributist solutions to current problems: policies that establish a favourable climate for the establishment and subsequent thriving of small businesses; policies that discourage mergers, takeovers and monopolies; policies that allow for the break-up of monopolies or larger companies into smaller businesses; policies that encourage producers’ cooperatives; policies that privatize nationalized industries; policies that bring real political power closer to the family by decentralizing power from central government to local government, from big government to small government.” Not all of those policy recommendations are disagreeable, but I think the driving ideal strikes against the economic principles of comparative advantage, mutually beneficial trade, and division of labor most of all.

That’s all I’ll say about it right now, but I have a feeling I may be revisiting this at some point in the future. Again, it looks like a nice idea on the surface, but it seems to have an autarkic vibe going on.

Q: Nathan asks: “What is your reaction to the SCOTUS ruling that the federal judiciary cannot block gerrymandering?”

A: This ruling came down the same day they blocked the census question, so I was simultaneously glowing and groveling, glowing for the gerrymandering case and groveling about the census one. If you ever get the pleasure of taking a constitutional law class, you will probably read over some Court cases on gerrymandering. When you do so, you end up with a general observations:

1. The Court has been relatively clear that gerrymandering based on a protected class like race will land you in a piping-hot glass of judicial smackdown. If you divy up your districts according to race, you will lose the inevitable lawsuit, pretty much guaranteed.
2. The Court is also suspicious about weirdly-shaped districts. How can you tell that a district is weirdly-shaped? Well, my boy, you can read the many pages of opinions on those matters to find out, but I will say that there are some amusing examples to look at if you do your due digging.
3. Political gerrymandering has always been the tricky one; there’s no way to rule on an individual case without opening yourself up to accusations of political bias, hence why gerrymandering is often cast as a state issue.

What the Court is recognizing here is that they do not have the authority or the will to play referee on every case of gerrymandering. It’s an untenable position, and fortunately they’ve realized this. Political gerrymandering is ultimately one of those necessary evils in our system, and it’s not the Court’s job to solve it. Let the states use their own wisdom or lack thereof to tackle it.

A Final Reflection:

I had originally intended to do four reflections on Christians and the LGBT community, but the softball reflection came along, and I said more in my second reflection on the matter than I meant to. As such, I think I’ve said what I needed to say on the matter for now, so I will simply invite all of you to have a wonderful 4th of July celebration and enjoy the day with family and friends if possible. We’ll be back in two weeks with more mailbag fun so, until then, keep sending in those questions and do enjoy the holiday.