Charlatans and the Gospel

The other night, as I finished my homework, my two roommates were flipping through the TV channels. Sadly, the paid programming of late night TV often has more humor, albeit unintentional, than most comedy sitcoms during prime time. My roommates found their way to the Inspiration Network, which was hosting one of those televangelist programs that more resemble a PBS money drive than the preaching of the Gospel. The pastor, who I will not name, was preaching on the story of Elisha and the widow and the account of the Shumannite woman and her son. After thirty minutes of inchoate shouting and dramatics, characterized with what was at best a questionable hermeneutic, I gleaned that the essential message of his “sermon” (though performance would probably be a more apt term) was that we should pledge $500 and he would pray to God for us and He will solve all of our problems; financial, relational, psychological. His message would probably have made the infamous indulgence salesmen John Tetzel blush. I was regaled with sweeping claims that faith in Jesus (and, more specifically, my giving of $500) would cancel my debt, improve my health, bless me materially, and (I think) even raise loved ones from the dead. It was the health and wealth gospel at its finest. By the way, I like to think that few human beings had more faith in Jesus than St. Paul and he was imprisoned, beaten to near death, lashed, stoned, shipwrecked three times, left adrift at sea, despised by his own people, exposed to the elements, suffered from hunger, and finally was martyred in Rome by Nero.

After his message the pastor ascended to a set of Jesus’ tomb, which was perched in a high corner of the auditorium (for reasons I still don’t understand). For the next half-hour the pastor basically kept shouting the same things over and over again until he was short of breath: you should send me your money so that I can pray for God to bless you. I really wanted to call in and ask him the same question Luther proposed to the pope; if you could pray for people to be blessed, why not do it out of love rather than for money? It seemed that a good proportion of the $500 dollars from each of the 5,000 people who pledged money ($2.5 million total, if his claim was actually correct) must have gone to pay for his silk suit, the vast auditorium that his mega-church met in (10-18,000 members strong!), the Starbucks in his mega-church, and the extravagant set that had been constructed there in the likeness of first century Jerusalem. I am only assuming because he never really told us where all the money for his “ministry” was being spent or what the purpose of his “ministry” really was. After the time for pledging closed, the stone in front of the tomb was rolled away, unleashing a cloud smoke and flashes of light. The pastor had told the audience that true believers would see angels. I’m not sure he was entirely serious. In any case I did not see any angels, but then again I suppose that I am not among the true believers.

The program was simultaneously hilarious and revolting. I could not help feeling that the pastor deserved to be situated nearby one of Dante’s popes in the afterlife. Perhaps my extreme reaction is due to the fact that pastor’s performance comprises all of what I find despicable in contemporary American Christianity. Its style of worship is nothing short of pagan; it demands sacrifices (money) to appease God so he can bless you and give you health, wealth, happiness. God in contemporary American Christianity is little different from a Greek god, albeit more grandfatherly and tame, who can be commanded and manipulated according to certain rituals or actions. Moreover, God does not exist to be worshipped for the mere sake that He is God and or even to bring us salvation. God in the mega-church, like the Greek or Roman pantheon, exists to bless us with health, wealth, and happiness provided that we please him. Essentially he exists to please us. True, many Christians in all ages have turned to God for His strength in hope that He would provide some sort of security for them. And I do not mean to deny that many of the first Christians converted because they saw the power of God displayed before them. The glorious thing about the Christian faith is that it is based on God’s grace with no respect to our individual merit and even our most earthly desires can be used to point us to the greater truths about God. However, I do not believe that the position of a third century Bedouin or a tribal Bushman, who accepted Christ only because of the miracles of a saint or missionary, is someone to be exemplified. Christ tells us that to whom much has been given, much is expected. I believe that in the end we will be judged according to the means to which we have been blessed. But contemporary Americans have been blessed with much; with ample opportunities of education and contemplation (this pastor claimed to be a “doctor,” in what he never tells) and so what churches like this do is inexcusable. Moreover, it may be excusable for recent converts to still be in some degree of darkness but for the Church, who is obligated to spread the truth of the Gospel, to preach base and false doctrines is not.

Christians are commanded to be a light in the darkness. Unfortunately, now, as has often be the case, we do not. We fail and we fail to a miserable degree. We decree that the empire is now the Kingdom of God made manifest, we launched crusades, we burn heretics, we go on holy wars, and we commit fraud. However, we cannot focus on the Church’s earthly existence. St. Paul knew this as well as anyone. He was painfully aware of the failings of the Corinthians, fully admitting that they did what was unheard of, even among pagans. But St. Paul had one comfort, one reason to boast; Jesus Christ. The Gospel, testified to us by the Holy Spirit, is out ideal and the Church is obligated to point all men to this ideal and hold fast to it. Contemporary Christianity has a theology of mediocrity. I like to call it “therapeutic theism.” It involves the belief that God is a grandfather in heaven who exists to bless us and make our lives pleasant and to perhaps, on occasion, rain judgment down on those who disagree with us. It causes contemporary Christians to focus in the things of this earth and to stop there and become complacent. God may indeed bless us materially, but this is not His end. His end is to make us Sons of God and this is a very painful and unpleasant process indeed. The theology of the contemporary American Church ignores Paul’s admonition not to focus on the things of the flesh but to yearn for the things of the Spirit. We do not run the good race, looking toward the finish and the crown of victory, but lay down soon after the start. Christians far too often do not follow the example of Paul but of that of the Hare who was beaten by the Tortoise because he fell asleep during the race. American Christians lust for drama, entertainment, good programs, and nice social gatherings instead of working out our salvation in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, contemplating the glory of God, engaging Him in prayer, marveling at His creation, and proclaiming the good news to the poor.

In short, we Christians do not seek things divine but seek base and trivial things. Part of sin is elevating those things that are part of creation, including ourselves, to the place where God ought to be. We cheat God out of the worship and reverence He deserves when we do this. In this we are terrible fools. I can think of no better example of this than sex. We live an age that glorifies sex, often making it the chief end of man. Christians respond in a very interesting way to this idolatry; they idolize it further. They speak of modern man “debasing” sex, when what he has really done is put it on a pedestal. When I was in high school I went to a youth retreat that dealt with sexual purity, but did so by speaking of sex with a reverence that is akin to communion or baptism! The problem with sex outside of marriage is not that it debases sex, but that sex becomes banal substitute for our true purpose; to be sons of God. We become so enthralled by the pleasures of sex that we turn away from our calling for something higher; true love. Love is a reflection of the most holy Trinity in which for all eternity the three Persons surrender to each other in love becoming one Being. For this is what Scripture says; “the two shall become one flesh.” As Christians, we need do what the hymn says and turn our eyes upon Jesus. As best as we can, we must endeavor to run the good race with our eyes constantly on the prize of becoming true sons of God, living not according to the flesh but of the Spirit. I leave you with this passage of St. Paul to reflect on these things:

¹If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. ³For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-3)

Faith

In the last post I talked about faith and reason without really defining either. I do not know that the definition of either is really understood by most people in a clear or correct way. When most think of reason they probably think of rational intuition; perceiving whether things make sense. Others might think of reason as the formal rules of logic, say modus ponens and syllogisms. Yet it is also proper, I think, to add perception and the senses to this definition, hence including the sciences as well as mathematics and philosophy. Suffice it to say, reasoning is something that men do; it is how men figure things out about the world. Many contemporary Christians are in the habit of rejecting reason to a certain extent, believing that it is wholly corrupted by sin. In a sense they are right, sin affects our whole being, including our reasoning capabilities. Men seek not the truth. Yet I know of nowhere in Scripture where the Word preaches skepticism. It was Athens and not Jerusalem that produced the school of the Cynics. What I believe Scripture does teach is that while the world can produce knowledge it is not the knowledge of the City of God but of the City of the World; it can produce truth, and truth that can be incorporated by Christians, but truth that is aimed not at knowing God but at pleasing man. And that is where faith comes in. Faith is that which corrects our noetic structure. What, then, is faith? I believe that the Heidelberg Catechism explains it better than I could:

Question 21. What is true faith?

Answer: True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, (a) but also an assured confidence, (b) which the Holy Ghost (c) works by the gospel in my heart; (d) that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, (e) are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits. (f)

Question 22. What is then necessary for a Christian to believe?

Answer: All things promised us in the gospel, (a) which the articles of our catholic undoubted Christian faith briefly teach us.

Question 23. What are these articles?

Answer: 1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: 2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord: 3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: 4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell: 5. The third day he rose again from the dead: 6. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty: 7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead: 8. I believe in the Holy Ghost: 9. I believe a holy catholic church: the communion of saints: 10. The forgiveness of sins: 11. The resurrection of the body: 12. And the life everlasting.

Faith and Reason

This is currently one of the topics I have been thinking heavily about because it is playing a crucial role in many of my classes this year. I am taking a class on Rise of Christianity and a class on athropology this semester so naturally this question has been coming up quite a bit. As far as I can see there are essentially three views of reason:

1. Faith Completes Reason - The Thomist view. The view of Aquinas and many Catholic philosophers/theologians today. Faith and reason are both forms of warranted belief but they exist in their own spheres. Faith is something extra added to reason. E.g. the existence of God may be shown true or probable by philosophy but it requires faith to know about doctrines such as the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Trinity.

2. Faith Justified by Reason - The Lockean view. The view of most modernists. Faith can only be accepted in so much as reason confirms it. Reason is the bar to which all else must bend. Doctrines such as the existence of God, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Trinity are to be believed only to the degree that reason shows them to be rational. E.g. One can only believe Scripture if one has good proofs that Scripture ought to be believed.

3. Faith Complements Reason - The Augustinian View. The view of Augustine, Anselm, and the Reformed thinkers (both modern and pre-modern). It takes the deliverances of faith on the same ground as the deliverances of reason and does philosophy (or any other discipline for that matter) on the assumption that both are reliable sources of knowledge. Faith is a priori knowledge and therefore needs no argument from reason just as sense perception needs no argument from reason (nor is a non-circular one even possible). Faith and reason are seen to complement one another.

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I personally see the third as the best choice because I see the deliverances of faith on the same epistemic grounds as reason and sense perception. Just as I perceive, say, a tree, so I also perceive that God exists or that God speaks to me through Scripture and Sacrament.

Joy

I think that the thing that irks me the most about the world today is the reduction of all things to their utility. No doubt if anyone has taken an economics class they will be told that the value of a thing is found in its utility, or, to be more precise (as in the case of the water/diamond paradox), in a thing's personal utility. What this does, I think, is create a world of mediocrity; a world of power, fitness, and survival. Everything is good in so far as it achieves our ends. Indeed, the modern world hates excellence for the sake of excellence. The reason is that excellence is difficult to attain and it has absolutely nothing to do with gaining power, making money, or being biologically fit. Therefore, moderns try to reduce excellence to fitness and power. They think a scene beautiful because our ancestors found food or shelter there. They think love is good because it helped make society better. But can we really accept this? Why is it when all of the supposedly transcendent and excellent things in the world have been reduced, allegedly, to biochemistry do we feel so utterly disconcerted? Why must something be good simply for the sake of being good? I think because in the end we know that these things are not really what the moderns have reduced them to being. Its not merely that we like art or nature or good morals or that we think they are useful. They have an ought quality to them. They have a feeling of transcendence about them and we know by their very nature that they are intrinsically good. We know that ultimately they point to a reality that is above our own and no dose of doublethink can convince us otherwise.

What these things are, are pure joy. I think nothing can prove my case more than to point out that excellence has very little survival advantage. How can someone honestly think that love really has survival advantage? Maternal and paternal love and camaraderie may indeed be beneficial. But the belief that we should honestly "Do unto others that you would have them do unto you," or yet "Love one another as I have loved you" because it is beneficial for ourselves or even society is foolish. Take one glance modern politics, modern business, and every single civilization that has ever existed and you will see that the opposite of these values are the ones that truly have fitness. Every civilization has been assembled by violence and cruelness. Justice is a particularly annoying thing when it comes to constructing a nation or business; for everywhere we must sacrifice what really needs to be done for the sake of what is "right." The same with beauty. Can one really think expending time and resources to make art has survival advantage? It might be said that all art is a reflection of nature and artistry is tied to our desire for nature, but this just begs the question; why nature should be beautiful. Why should be find it beautiful, good, and desirable. True some aspects of nature should have been attractive (say a fertile river valley) because men would have settled there and survived there. But the irony is that it is not the tame things of nature that we find beautiful. Rather it is the most exotic things that fill us with a sense of beauty and joy. Seas and the rain forests are hardly suitable to survival. Neither are storms or dangerous animals. Yet all of these things exude beauty.

Ultimately, we pursue excellence and transcendent things for one simple reason; joy. And what is joy? Joy is God and enjoying him forever. This is because all of the joyous things were made by God and reflect his nature. Joy in the Christian faith is not an easy thing. It does not have fitness. As Christ said, "whosoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Neither does Christian joy produce material blessing and power. As James, the brother of our Lord, said, "Count it as all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds." The joy of a Christian is not in survival. Rather it is God, who gives meaning to our survival. We must seek God even if it means the end of survival for us, such as the martyrs do. Joy is ultimately to be complete in God and to find in His grace our adoption as sons. This is because, as St. Augustine said, our justification is in God since we are created beings and our being is derive from God. He who forsakes the things of God forsake a part of his very being. Is this not what the existentialists found? The nihilism of the modern age had severed people like Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus from all sense of being and thus they tried to regain that being through existentialism. But why, if we are all just part of nature and our being (i.e. the universe) just is and is not derived from anything else, should we need to anchor our being in something transcendent? The reason is we are made by God and our hearts can only find rest in him.

Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga gives his defeater of naturalism. I have to say, it is one of the most clever arguments I have ever heard. I takes evolution, which, to me, seems indespensable to naturalism (how did all of this fauna and flora come about?, as Plantinga would say) and makes it an argument against naturalism. The sound isn't fantastic but its the best example available online. It comes in five parts (so roughly a fifty minute lecture). A tab should appear on the screen to take you to the new part.

Part I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWVoi_IjTKs&feature=related

Proper Patriotism

"Love becomes a demon when it becomes a god."

-M. de Rougemont

Patriotism, when perverted into nationalism, becomes poisonous. When we become deceived by the myth of our own superiority we become capable of unspeakable acts; we who become gods become demons. For Christians, nationalism is especially dangerous because all too often it replaces that love that belongs to the Church or even to God. True religion is due only to God and not to our nation. Our joy must be in our God and not our country. Nationalism is what causes good Christian men to forget the commands "love thy neighbor as thy self" or "love one another as I have loved you." There is no more tragic cause of this than the multitude of German Christians who mistook Nazi national renewal for Christian renewal, for their nationalism and Christian faith become intertwined, and could thus reconcile the extermination of millions of Jews with Christian ethics. Nationalism can cause Christians to become prideful. St. Augustine’s fundamental message in his monumental City of God is that the patria of Christians is not on earth but in heaven. Christians must always remember that true love country must be according to the apostle's command: "Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant."

C. S. Lewis on nationalism: "If there were no broken treaties with the Redskins, no extermination of the Tasmanians, no gas chambers and no Belsen, no Amrisar, Black and Tans or Apartheid, the pomposity…would be a roaring farce."

Qualities of Proper Patriotism

*Love of home - This is our love of the familiar; of national particularities. It is our love of the land. It is our corporate sharing of a familiar culture; our love of baseball, apple pie, the English language, and the Fourth of July. Our love for our nation should mirror our love of our home. America is our country and the land is our land. It is what enables a Californian to feel closer to a Pennsylvanian than he would a European. This is quality in patriotism that enables us to fight for our patria and protect it from the foreigner.

*Sense of duty - We are not born into this world autonomous. We depend on others to nurture us and bring is to maturity. We rely on our country for protection, for a job, for survival, for socialization. We owe certain duties to the government, the military, and the local police who protect us; to the land that provides us with food and shelter; to the communities and institutions that bring us to maturity. For all that our country has done for us we owe it love.

*Tradition - In the same way we owe much to those who presently occupy our country so we also owe much to those who occupied it formerly. For everything we inherit at our birth is the creation of our ancestors. The nation of the past, in addition to the nation of the present, contributes to our well-being. This is seen in the stories of the pioneers who settled new American lands and of the immigrants who, with their distinct skills, melted into the American way of life.

*National virtues - Few nations are devoid of virtues and it should be a nation's privilege and joy to have pride those virtues. This should not be a snobby or arrogant pride that smacks of pretensions to national superiority. It should be like a father who has pride in his son. It is wholly good to cherish the hard-work, the strength, and the honesty of the American people; as long as we remember that America has no monopoly on virtue and it is far from sainthood.

Excellence and Education - Part I: The "Secular" Benefits

I cannot tell you how many times, after telling someone that I am a history major, I get a puzzling look following by the same query: “So what are you going to do with that? Teach?” There are two assumptions here; 1) Historical knowledge is mainly useful for teaching (presumably American history so that the eternal glories/damnable failures of America can be elucidated) and has no other real “practical” value and 2) a college education is primarily good for getting a job. I usually grit my teeth and answer that I plan on grad school and then either an academic or government career (which usually soothes their utilitarian spirit). Why do I get so vexed you might ask? The reason is that it represents the death of excellence in American society. Excellence is never pursued for its own sake, rather it is pursued only in as so much as it gets you a good job and makes you money. This in turn reveals the consequence (or maybe motivation?) for the death of excellence; shallow consumerism.

Education has been largely abandoned for its own sake. I see this every day. Students are annoyed with general education classes. They spend lecture playing games or surfing the Internet and then contenting themselves with an average grade in the class. What matters to them is that they pass college and get a degree that will enable them to get a job. “When will I ever have to know this?” they lament. It grieves me tremendously that this is at a Christian college! Evangelicals, I think, need to do everything in their power to improve their intellectual life these days (but more on that later). The reason that history, literature, theology, or other humanities classes seem useless to students is that their entire focus for college is their job. When will you have to know about the French Revolution, The Wasteland, the nature of God, the big bang, or existentialism in your career? Well, never. But that is only because you view college as a vocational school. That education is meant primarily to get you a good job is a very modern idea. Prior to the 20^th century, and especially to the post-World War II era, education was not so much about vocation as about excellence. Education made you a better person.

Today, people are completely uninterested in being a better person – unless it gets you something in return. Think of all the books on the spiritual life, for instance. So many books tell you that cultivating a spiritual life will get you rich or make you healthy and happy. They hardly ever say (at least the best selling ones) that closeness to God is something good in and of itself. In the realm of “secular” education (the inappropriateness of this term will be discussed later) this is no different. The contemporary American is inert. “Betterment” involves a better car, a better computer, a better house, a better paycheck, or a better yard. In a recent class, my professor lamented how more than half of the students in the 1960s majored in the humanities. Today it is less than 10%. Students simply do not see the benefits of the humanities because their value system is materialistic, not intellectual or spiritual. Yet education is valuable. It is indispensable to the pursuit of excellence. Indeed, can we truly say that there has been any widespread betterment in society because of this switch from the humanities to “practical” subjects? I’d be prepared to argue that any societal changes since the 1960s (apart from the Civil Rights movement, which began before then) have not generally improved society.

Firstly, the humanities help you to understand humanity. History enables a person to understand the complexity of human society in the past and present. The present is nothing more than the product of the past and without a proper understanding of what made the present, you will never understand it. I like to use the analogy of a boyfriend and a girlfriend. Imagine a boyfriend who decided one day that remembering anything about his girlfriend’s past was useless and he would from now on concentrate solely on the present. Can you honestly imagine that this person would be able to understand and interact with his significant other? He would forget how to make her happy, the nature of their present relationship, their anniversaries, how to please her, what to buy her for her birthday or Christmas, how to get along with her parents, etc. Essentially, their relationship would deteriorate. They would have no idea how to get along or fulfill each other’s needs. There would be hostility. The same is true if we forget our history. We cannot interact in any meaningful way with the present no matter how well we try to understand the here and now because it involves a long history.

The same is true for literature. Literature has been the primary way that humans have expressed their ideas and meaning throughout history. This is also true of art and music. In my political philosophy class we have discussed how modern society has de-humanized humanity. The primary passions of humanity are things material. The neglect of ideas and meaning has bred alienation and existential crisis in modern man. This is because meaning (something that has nothing to do with survival value or success) is an intrinsic part of man. This is damnably vexing to the modernists who argue for a pragmatic philosophy and insist that humanity is nothing more and economics or rational self-interest. Understanding the ideal aspect of humanity will not get a six-figure job but it will breed beauty, peace, and joy. It will also give a deeper understanding of humanity and help the way humans interact with one another as a result.

The modern American has also forsaken the joys of contemplation. He or she rarely stops to ponder life in all its depth. Americans are far too concerned with getting ahead in life to opt for a life of reflection. People are too busy climbing the corporate ladder, hauling their kids off to soccer practice, or engaging in banal entertainment to stop and contemplate. Self-reflection is essential to excellence and is mainly engendered by making people think, something that the liberal arts and humanities have a habit of doing. Reflection will yield great insight both into humanity in general and yourself specifically. I would argue that reflection is critical to the Christian because he or she is required by their faith to either contemplate God and their own moral lives. Self-reflection, like learning about literature, art, or music, has intrinsic value. I cannot explain in words the simple joy of finding a quiet, beautiful place and simply engaging in reflection and contemplation. While I am no advocate of monasticism upon serious theological grounds, I have to imagine that the time for reflection afforded by the monastery is one of its most attractive characteristics. To be truly successful in reflection and the pursuit of excellence, however, one needs this next critical skill.

Education instills critical thinking – a characteristic that is woefully lacking among most Americans. Critical thinking has to do with disseminating information, understanding it, and then making judgments about it. It means not uncritically accepting a proposition. It means thinking for yourself and not just thinking whatever the media, talk radio, Hollywood, advertisements, or pastors on TV tell you to think. Modernity has been most detrimental to critical thinking since it has introduced mass media, a psychology of propaganda, and advertisements. However, it is impossible to excel without critical thinking. As Socrates said long ago, the unexamined life is not worth living. Critical thinking is essential to any coherent world view because it refines and corrects thinking. There are no simple answers and only critical thinking enables an individual to navigate through the complexities of existence. Perhaps aversion to critical thinking among Americans, especially conservative Americans, is its confusion with cynicism. The difference is that critical thinking seeks to build up and pursue excellence while cynicism is usually aimed only at tearing down. Cynics are often nihilistic and get pleasure from the act of criticizing rather than its goal.

Finally, on a very practical level, education and the pursuit of excellence is necessary to be a good citizen. The American system of government is related to the traditional English system with its emphasis on common law. The common law approach to government gives importance to judicial precedent and tradition. In the British system, the constitution is not written but the accumulation of tradition whereas in the American system we have a written constitution that provides a very general basis of law. However, many of the rights in the Constitution have their base in the English common law tradition (property rights, a right to a jury by your peers, limitations on the executive/king). Therefore, the American system is inherently a historical system. One cannot fully comprehend the American system of government without understanding how it evolved historically. Equally important is an understanding of general political philosophy. Most Americans are ignorant of the political and moral assumptions that undergird policy. I am completely vexed by the belief by many Americans that what we need is more “common sense” that works toward the “common good.” Politicians are endlessly trashed for putting their political ideologies above the “good of the nation.” What most Americans do not understand is that political ideologies and ideas cannot be divorced from the “common good” of the nation. The very idea that governments are the creation of the people to protect their rights (life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness) is an assumption/pre-supposition formed by Locke and was completely foreign to anybody living prior to the sixteenth century. Yet we are told endlessly that the consent of the governed is a “self-evident” right. Whether or not Lockean Social Contract Theory is right or wrong is not the point here. What I am emphasizing is that what we believe to be “common sense” is really creations of political philosophers. History has shown that there are very few characteristics of government that have been “self-evident” to all people. We cannot appeal to “common sense” for the common good but instead need to traverse the winding trail of pre-suppositions and political theory, which can only be properly introduced by education. On a final note, it would not hurt for most Americans to have a general understanding of the mechanics of American government and constitutional history if they plan on taking part in American democracy. Unfortunately, few Americans do and their voting patterns have reflected such ignorance.