On Pelagianism
##############

:date: 2021-01-17T08:38:40
:category: faith
:tags: review, culture, sociology, politics, Christianity

(my comments on “`The Roots of Josh Hawley’s Rage`_” by Katherine
Stewart in The New York Times, 2021-01-11; letter to a friend who
raged against Senator Josh Hawley right after `The Storming of US
Capitol`_)

OK, let me start by quoting Alan Cox, Welsh (he would killed me,
if I said he is English) computer programmer, one of the
co-authors of Linux:

    “And religious texts are a bit like software standards, the
    interpretation is always the tricky and complicated bit.”

So, yes, I completely and unequivocally agree with Mr Hawley that
Pelagianism is one of the biggest evils tormenting current Church
and society. And I think you would agree as well. What we would
probably don't agree with him is exactly the interpretation and
application of this thought to the current politics. (And I don't
agree with some of his conclusions. I don't think Pelagius
believed individuals could achieve their own salvation, meaning
aside from God. He always expected the need for God's assistance
to achieve that.)

The basic idea of Pelagianism is that we get from God what we
deserve by our efforts, and God’s mercy is here just to enable us
to succeed, but in the success or the failure is what matters
whether we get accepted by God / go to Haven / however you call
it.

So, that businessman claiming that he is so rich because he is
after all more capable than others, or Ayn Rand following him?
Yes, that's Pelagianism. That girl who was on the suicide watch
for some time, and she cries on my shoulder (via phone, given the
coronavirus) every other week that God couldn't accept her,
because she doesn't like him enough? Yes, that's Pelagianism.
Whole concept of “undeserving poor”? Yup. Whole Prosperity Gospel
with pastors proclaiming that if you pray enough (and pay your
tithes enough) than God will bless you monetarily and that’s
after all what matters? Horrible rotten thing rooted in
Pelagianism.

There is that very confusing book (and TV series on WGBH based on
it, also available on YouTube_) “`Status Anxiety`_” by Alain de
Botton. It seems like having incredible insightful ideas, but it
is shockingly little science-like. No reference to previous works
(no footnotes! that's the heresy in the scientific literature),
not much scientific data, not much development of the theory. And
yet, it has been provoking me since I read it. There are many
things which are there, but one idea is very simple and relevant
to Pelagianism. In the ancient regime, where your position on the
societal hierarchy was given, you may resent your superiors, you
may be angry towards them or towards God, that you are poor, but
that was it. In the world where supposedly we are all equal and
our position on the social ladder depends supposedly only on our
achievements, not only those peoples life sucks, but on the top
of that, we tell them lovingly that it is all their fault. Thus
not only your position in the social hierarchy but all your
successes and failures suddenly reflect your quality as a person,
and getting to the top is suddenly the only thing which matters.
Thus the anxiety about our status.

So, that's the part where I have tendency to agree with Mr
Hawley. Actually, the referred article_ in the Christianity Today
may seem like rather interesting to you as well.

Or at least the part before he gets to his ideas about the
political application of this. I am not big fan of the Supreme
Court case Casey v Planned Parenthood (1992), but how you get
from there to the isolationism, populism, and Making American
Great Again™ is really really weird turn.

And then there are things which have nothing to do with
Pelagianism and where is just objectively wrong: globalisation is
not the source of all evil, but objectively it brings the most
wealth to all levels of society including the poorest ones in
America.

Ideas of MAGA_ people that by isolating USA all those working
class jobs will come back is just a lunacy. No, they won't, they
would be replaced by robots, if necessary. There is no way in
going back to the mythical (and rather nasty in terms of racism,
misogyny and such) 1950s, the only way is to get forward and to
move people from those working class jobs to something more
sophisticated, to have more free market, more entrepreneurialism,
more creativity. So, for example, protection against the big ol'
American monopolies would be helpful (not supporting them as all
administrations did since at least George W. Bush, Mr Obama
unfortunately very much included). And yes, you leave plenty of
people behind, who are too old to be retrained, and yes, some
better welfare system could save dignity of their lives. But
there is no way back, only forward.

To the article you were referring to. I am afraid that for Ms
Katherine Stewart any stick is good if she can beat Mr Hawley
with it (“Kdo chce psa bíti, vždy si hůl najde.”, the Czech
equivalent of “It is easy to find a stick to beat a dog”). So,
no, I don’t see anything supremely evil in claiming that “There
is not one square inch of all creation over which Jesus Christ is
not Lord.” She may be an atheist and not liking this, but that’s
what has been taught basically by every Christian of all ages. If
Mr Hawley wants to say that CHRISTIANS (and specifically his type
of Christians) have sole legitimate authority over everybody,
that’s completely different story, but I am not sure Ms Stewart
makes convincing argument that Mr Hawley says that.

I am not sure what to write more, so I will rather stop.

.. _`The Roots of Josh Hawley’s Rage`:
   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/opinion/josh-hawley-religion-democracy.html

.. _`The Storming of US Capitol`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_storming_of_the_United_States_Capitol

.. _YouTube:
    https://youtu.be/t1MqJPHxy6g 

.. _`Status Anxiety`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_Anxiety

.. _article:
    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/june-web-only/age-of-pelagius-joshua-hawley.html

.. _MAGA:
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again