Busy couple of weeks

In the last two weeks I have done quite a bit. I first went to Charleston, SC for the Society for Classical Learning conference. I had a wonderful time there listening to and learning from many in the classical school community. Charleston was, of course, fantastic. I made some new friends in schools I hadn't heard of before.
One of the most interesting folks I met was Andrew Kern. Andrew is director of CiRCE in Charlotte, NC and editor of the Quiddity blog on the blogroll. I highly recommend checking his blog out from time to time.
After the SCL conference I went over to my home state of Tennessee and visited family for about a week. While there I did the impossible, I read an entire book. R.J. Rushdoony's Foundations of Social Order made it into my bag because I have been trying to read through the Bannockburn reading list. I found it a fascinating read with much to contribute to my thinking and the church as well. I highly recommend it. Through commentary on the creeds and councils of the early church, Rushdoony points out four key concepts that must be understood to lie at the heart of any social order. 1) A Creed: Every society has one. Even not having one is having one. 2) The State: The State with either be a ministry of justice (its god-given role) or it will attempt to be messianic (its humanistic desire). 3) Sovereignty: This will either be immanent or transcendent. 4) Grace: This element puts every outworking of the social order in proper perspective. Social action only makes sense if done through grace, which must understand the nature of sin and corruption. If done without a proper understanding of grace social action is just humanistic and attempting to fix a problem by adjusting the environment of the sinner. This will never work.
I just got back from Tennessee and think I have found a starting place for my thesis. After finishing Rushdoony I picked up my Agrarianism reading again. Donald Davidson wrote a piece about the New Deal in which he talks about a Agrarian-Distributist view. Once I read that something began clicking into place.
It has been amazing to see that stuff I've been thinking about for years has begun making sense the more I read the agrarians. They have dealt with much of this before. Immigration, industrialism, social action, ancient history, Chesterton and Belloc. All of this has begun to coalesce while I have been reading these guys.
I will have to do some serious study of Davidson and Distributism, but I think I'm going to latch onto that idea (the idea of a Agrarian-Distributist view) and move with it.
I am still blogging about Angels in the Architecture, or rather intend to still blog about it. I already have some later chapters blogged out, but want to do them in order.

Why Welfare Systems Don't Work

The Puritans had much to teach concerning social action, as did godly Christian leaders from before their time and after. John Calvin, for example, created a "welfare system" in Geneva that upheld the biblical demands to feed the poor and care for the widow and the orphan, and all within the god-given structure of the Church. The Puritans understood the value of working for the common welfare of the community and men like William Ames instructed believers to have a "living religion" not one that was mere empty words. Works of piety and charity were often commended by the Puritans. As recently as the nineteenth century, Thomas Chalmers, through his tireless actions, reduced Glasgow's welfare budget needs to nothing by the careful and directed actions of the local church.
Modern welfare movements will fail for a couple of reasons. For one thing they are trying to do the impossible. Contrary to modernist assumptions Christ has told us that we will always have poor people among us. Therefore any attempt to eradicate poverty through welfare systems or socialism is doomed to failure. Another reason, however, is that the wrong agency is doing the deeds. It should shame us that the state is doing the deeds of the local church. The state was not meant to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. This is the job of the Church and to the extent we have let the state get involved, we have abdicated our responsibility.
Until the Church stands up and takes responsibility for mercy ministry, we will continue to see the state's destructive policies tearing families apart. Many families never make it out of poverty or abject living conditions through state welfare systems. That is because they come devoid of proper instruction. Part of mercy ministry is instruction in righteousness.
I'll get down from the soap box now.