I think it is important to state where I stand and to assert what baggage I bring to the subject. It is obvious that anyone holding forth on theological and sociological occurrences is motivated by a consistent philosophy. Given that I am a Lutheran, my philosophy is necessarily bound to the theology of the Cross – a bond which is best defined as ‘viewing all things through suffering and the Cross.’ Although my philosophy is predominately Confessional, I am also influenced by reactionary Augustinianism, and by discernments of Christian existential thought. All of which is, after years of the bitter fires of experience, driven by both a certain Schopenhauerian view of our existence and an understanding of the twentieth century informed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
The reader should not be put off by the high sounding rhetoric of the previous paragraph. Be assured that, while I am confirmed in my philosophy, all of the descriptors above may, with a certain amount of finesse, be made to fit in some ramshackle way; but I do not care for them very much because that seem to indicate something arcane, academic and complicated – in other words something that needs a great deal of explanation. My view is too common and simple for such.
It is then a philosophy of ‘horse-sense’ and I have no patience for solipsism, progressivism (i.e. the denial of truth and reality) and the dismissal of the simple laws of logic. One is reminded that, while he was a well trained academic who could hold his own against the best the opposition could mount, Martin Luther was a parish priest who preached, spoke and wrote to and for his sturdy Saxons. He touched the lives and souls of this humble, illiterate and ignorant people because he brought God’s Law and Gospel down to earth.
SDG