God's Choice or Man's

Spoiler alert: this post is an in-house argument that will bore non-believers.

There is a debate within the Church that has been going on since at least the fourth century. The early church considered arguments from a British monk named Pelagius and Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, and in 418 finally denounced Pelagius' view and upheld Augustine's. Very briefly, the argument centered around the act of the human will in salvation. Pelagius believed that humans were capable of seeking God in their fallen state. Augustine taught total depravity, meaning that it is not possible for humans to seek God of their own will.

The issue made theological waves again in the 16th century when John Calvin and a former student, Jacob Arminius, became embroiled in it. Their names are most frequently associated with the debate today as Calvinism v. Arminianism. Arminius resurfaced most of Pelagius' argument with the modification that the human will was aided in seeking God by something that has come to be called "prevenient grace." In other words, humans are totally depraved, but everyone has the benefit of God's grace to come to salvation, not only those chosen by God before time.

An important corollary of this issue is referred to theologically as perseverance. Calvinists believe that people chosen by God for salvation are eternally secure in that state. Arminians teach that because humans play a part in their salvation, it is possible for them choose to reject salvation after having embraced it. The sovereignty of God is also understood differently by the two camps: Calvinists believe that God is totally sovereign in all his purposes and has ordained all that is and all that will be. Arminians believe that God's sovereignty is limited somewhat by the will of humans, but that his purposes are secured by his foreknowledge of what every human will do in every situation.

Each position has certain key Scriptures which are quoted as support. Likewise, there are Bible passages which vex each side, creating difficulties in maintaining a consistent interpretative position. One of the most sensitive sticking points is the Calvinist doctrine of election. I am going to treat two of the most frequently disputed passages as a demonstration of how the sides differ. I Timothy 2:1-4 has Paul exhorting prayers for all men because this is pleasing to God, "who desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth." Arminians think this proves that all humans may potentially be saved, not just the ones chosen by God as the Calvinists assert. Calvinists believe this presents God's loving heart toward his creation but not an aspect of his divine will.

The second passage often quoted by Arminians as closing the case against divine election is 2 Peter 3:9. Peter says that God is, "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." Like the passage in Timothy, this one suggests to Arminians that God doesn't want any human to go to hell, therefore implying that he makes salvation available to all. The Calvinist sees this verse as parallel to the one in Timothy. The Greek word "willing" is different in this passage from the word "desires" in Timothy, although they both carry the same connotation. Here in Peter, it would be easily translated "wishing."

In both passages the Arminians try to make God's attitude an action. But if God willed all men to be saved, they would in fact all be saved because God's will is omnipotent: nothing can resist the express will of God; it will be done. The statement that God desires something does not equate with its being a fact. Again, even if God wishes none would have to suffer punishment in hell, he nonetheless knows that hell will not be empty. Unless one chooses to side with the likes of Rob Bell and eliminate hell from the equation, one cannot avoid the sad fact that some humans are going to end up there. God may wish that it were otherwise, but he knows the future; he knows hell will be populated.

One imagines that when God created the earth and set Adam and Eve in the Garden, he "wished" that they would remain obediently dependent on him. He doubtless "desired" that they would not eat of the forbidden fruit. Yet the Bible clearly teaches that God's plan always included a Redeemer; the plan predates creation; he knew Adam and Eve would fall. The answer to why he did this is in Ephesians third chapter. Paul tells the Ephesians that God's mysterious plan is now revealed: he wants the angels in heaven to see how much he loves even fallen creatures. Man had to fall so that God could demonstrate his love in a most dramatic way.

The reason Arminian teaching is attractive, in my opinion, is because it takes back from God a small amount of control. The Calvinist sees God as the Sovereign of the universe and humans as subject to his irresistible divine will. In the Garden, the Serpent asked Eve, "Has God said..." He then challenged her to take some initiative and write her own rules. She did; Adam joined her, and we suffer the consequences. Yet even believers long for a degree of control over their lives; it is still difficult for some people to let go and let God.

I was raised Arminian; I "converted" to Calvinism after years of study and personal anguish. I have become quite comfortable letting God be God. This position does not make me a puppet as some may suggest. My finite little mind behaves practically as if it were totally free: I have free will as far as I can tell. When presented with options, I must choose black or white, salt or pepper. It matters not one whit that God has preordained my choice; it is still a real choice to me.

I had breakfast with a man last week who was raised Calvinist but has come to an Arminian view. I commented on the irony of our having passed one another in our theological journey going opposite directions. I look forward to the day when in heaven we can both approach John Calvin and Jacob Arminius and have a good laugh about the sign over the gate. On the outside it says, "Whosoever will may come," while on the inside it says, "Only the elect may enter." We'll all sit down over Dutch crullers and coffee and spend a thousand years pondering how that works.

Tsunami Warning

Beware: a massive regulatory wave approaches.

Elections have consequences; that is what the winners keep reminding us. Today we learned one of the consequences of the last two elections. The Obama administration has proposed nearly 6,000 new regulations in the last ninety days. In other words, since last August, when the reelection of President Obama was beginning to look chancy, his executive powers started working in overdrive. The regulations were put in a holding pattern until Obama's reelection was assured. Once Obama won, the tsunami of regulations was released (see Breitbart.com.)

Not only is this a direct contradiction to the candidate's promise to decrease business-stifling regulation, it turns out the President has also reneged on his claim that his administration would be open for public examination. The executive has also shortened the mandatory public comment window on proposed regulations from sixty to forty-five days. Since many of the new regs run into thousands of pages each, the likelihood of any real examination in that time is small. Foreshortening the comment period also contradicts Obama's previous call in an executive order released on January 18, 2011, for, "comment periods to last for at least 60 days." This must be another of the changes Obama was talking about in the 2008 campaign.

According to FactCheck.org, it is normal for Presidents to increase the pace of their executive creations in the final years of their term in office; it is called the Cinderella Effect. When the clock is about to strike the midnight of their power, they rush to make the most of their last minutes. What Obama has done is far in excess of any of  his predecessors, however. According to Town Hall, Obama averaged over 17,000 new regulations in each of his first two years. This number outstrips all previous administrations. Although his administration's 2012 rate of regulations is down, the number will explode when the 6,000 new rules he has held back hit the pipeline.

Besides all this, according to Senator Jim Inhofe, President Obama has failed to follow the rules regarding his regulatory agenda. Inhofe charges that the Obama administration has failed, "to comply with the law by refusing to publish its regulatory agenda." The purpose of providing such an agenda is to allow the effected parties enough time to practice due diligence and provide meaningful commentary during the public comment period. By refusing to publish the agenda and shortening the comment period, Obama has effectively shut off any real evaluation of his new proposals.

Back in 1773  the cry was "no taxation without representation." The new Tea Party should be chanting, "no regulation without representation." President Obama is achieving by fiat what he cannot by due legislative process. In his first two years, he had both houses of Congress, so they were able to ram Obamacare down our throats by legislative force. Since 2010 when the Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, the tactic has been to use the power of the judiciary and executive, even at the expense of violating standard rules and practices.

Barak Obama is as President what he was back in his Chicago days: an arrogant, unprincipled ideologue. He believes he knows what is best for America, and he intends to make it happen any way he can. He appears not to mind bending the rules to the breaking point if it suits his purpose. Sadly, there are plenty of people in this country who have no more respect for rules than he does, so they applaud his bold style.

The Bible says that in the last days things will get worse and worse before the end comes. It predicts that men will behave badly and be proud of it. When I see the shameless depravity of our politicians, or think of the debauchery that is standard fare for Hollywood and television, or witness the audacity of the LGBT movement with their claims of legitimacy, or recoil at the flagrant violation of all that is fiscally responsible in Washington D.C.,  or mourn the millions of unborn children slaughtered since Roe v. Wade, I can't imagine a more striking fulfillment of those Bible words. Scripture also says there will be some in the last days who will remain righteous and "be mighty and do exploits." It's beginning to look like people just doing right will be the mighty exploit. The only exploit common in Washington these days seems to be those exploiting their public trust.

Christianity: Religion or Philosophy

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has been a good soldier in the culture wars in recent years. In 2006 he even put out a best seller called Culture Warrior. He describes the opposing forces as, "those who embrace traditional values and those who want to change America into a 'secular-progressive' country." He makes it clear in his writing and on his television program that by "traditional values" he means the Judeo-Christian foundation on which this country was built.

O'Reilly's latest battle in the war is not going to be helpful in the long run, however. O'Reilly has been insisting recently that Christianity is a philosophy, not a religion. This position violates the "no-spin" pledge O'Reilly is so proud of. In an article in Real Clear Religion, Jeffrey Weiss makes my argument better than I could. (I highly recommend this article.) Trying to redefine a word so that it means what you want it to mean is Humpty-Dumpty's trick. It is not sound reasoning. I agree with Weiss that O'Reilly has done just this.

There are two reasons why this is an unfortunate move by O'Reilly. First it is unsustainable as a debate point. This is another way of saying he is wrong. There is such a thing as Christian philosophy, as Weiss points out. However, Christian philosophy is founded on Christian religious beliefs. The philosophy is an outgrowth of the religion, not the other way around as O'Reilly is trying to arrange. If someone came from another planet and stumbled upon the tenets of Christianity, it would be obvious that they are religious tenets. Weiss makes this point also.

The second reason O'Reilly's position is troublesome is that it becomes a classical slippery slope: if Christianity is merely a philosophy as he asserts, and if the Constitution forbids establishment only of religions, then the government could establish Christianity as a philosophy. While this may sound attractive to believers at first glance, it becomes less so upon further thought. This freedom to establish philosophy would then extend to atheism, pragmatism, nihilism, or any other dreadful "-ism" that might hold popular sway in a given Congress. This is precisely what the First Amendment prohibition against establishment was intended to thwart.

This does not mean that our government runs without philosophical underpinnings. Quite the contrary. No structure in human society is void of philosophy. The word "philosophy" simply describes how one views the world. It might be thought of as a lens through which one sees surrounding circumstances and behaviors. O'Reilly is correct to assert that our founding fathers held a decidedly Christian world-view and crafted a Constitutional government that would uphold and propagate that view.

Our real problem today is that a competing philosophy has grown so influential in society, particularly in government circles, that the Christian world-view no longer holds a clear majority. Our national elections which hover around a fifty-fifty split demonstrate this fact. True, there is not a bright line dividing Christianity into one political party or the other, although on the social issues, conservative Christians certainly lean more towards Republican platforms than Democrat. The battle we are fighting today in the public square is over Constitutional interpretation: will we maintain the perspective of the founders, or will we take a more dynamic approach and recast the principles upon which we govern.

We will continue to hold elections to decide the Constitutional issue, but I wonder if O'Reilly hasn't stumbled on a good argument in spite of his faulty application. Christianity as a philosophy is precisely what the Bible calls for: believers are supposed to view the world through God's eyes. "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." Even though seventy-five percent of Americans polled recently self-identified as Christians, other poll numbers and daily headlines suggest that far fewer of us actually live as though God had anything to do with our lives. George Barna found that only four percent of believers say they base their decisions on a biblical world-view.

These numbers tell me the church is failing in its primary task. The Great Commission was to make disciples; disciples are followers of their leader; our Leader modeled a radical new way to view the world. Apparently only four Christians in one hundred even try to operate with that world-view. Maybe O'Reilly is onto something. Maybe we should put more stress on the "philosophical" aspect of Christianity and less on the "religious." Maybe we are simply inoculating people with a weakened form of Christianity instead of infecting them with the powerful real  thing. (See Jeff Musgrave.)

Here is a new cause: let's forget about all this "1%" nonsense. After all, what profit is there in gaining the world and losing the soul. Let's start working on the 96% of our fellow-believers who have missed out on real Christianity. For that matter, let's make sure we are in the 4% who do get it. Let's agree with Bill O'Reilly: Christianity is a philosophy in the truest sense of the word. And it just happens to be founded on the religion that rests upon the true Word.

Toasting Christmas

Here's to wassail and figgy puddings!

It's Christmas morning and I woke up long before the sunrise. This is not unusual on December 25, although in recent years the empty nest has removed the reason to be up so early. Like most children, when I was young, I couldn't wait for this morning so I could tear into the presents waiting under the tree. After I married and my own children came along, I was as excited as they were to see the gifts distributed. I came to understand the almost embarrassed look on my Dad's face in all those home movies when he was given a gift to open. My real joy was in watching others get their presents.

 

That partially explains why during what I now call the fiscal dark ages I used credit with abandon to buy Christmas gifts for my family. Every year in January I swore I would never again charge "Christmas" and pay for eleven months after. Every year in December I broke my word and rang up the charges again. I don't mean to imply that all my borrowing was for the benefit of others; I spent plenty of money on myself in the form of cars, motorcycles, boats, and other toys. But somehow, I was able to excuse my annual December excess by calling it generosity.

Now that exigency has forcefully removed the temptation of a plastic Christmas celebration, I still overspend; at least it doesn't haunt me throughout the next year in monthly billing statements. True, the January light bill may get paid a little late, and there will be no emergency savings for some time, but I feel much better knowing it was a cash Christmas. I don't have great wealth to distribute, but I enjoy sharing what I can at this season.

But I wonder if I don't still have a serious problem with the focus of my excitement. I wonder if I haven't bought into the great commercial hype we have succumbed to in this society. Saying Christmas is about giving sounds noble, even spiritual, but that does not really reflect the reason for the season. It may be unselfish to give to others, but if I give because it makes me feel good, I have admitted a grain of selfishness in my motivation. Worse, if I overspend so that I can give "generously," pride may have slipped into the package as well.

As the sun lights the Christmas morning sky, I am forced to ask what Christmas really means to me. I am sitting in front of a beautifully decorated (fake) evergreen with a substantial pile of gaily wrapped presents lying underneath it. The yule log blazes with digital perfection on my flat screen while Christmas music pumps out of my surround sound system. No less than fourteen Santas sit in various poses around the living area, and scores more artifacts of the holiday grace every flat surface available.

Sadly, it sounds trite to say what I am about to say: Jesus is the reason for the season. I know this somewhere deep inside, but my outward expression (and my wife's decorating obsession) belie the truth of it. Granted, there is one manger scene among the red and green collection of holiday images, but the preponderance of everything else the season has become outweighs any spiritual significance of the little creche. The preparations and resulting activities also shout louder than the message of the manger.

It will not be popular to say so, but the reason we celebrate the coming of Jesus is because of what he was destined to do for us. Thanks to our forefather, Adam, we are all born separated from our Creator by a distance that no man can cross. But years after the manger, a cross did span the distance between God and his fallen creatures, and the sweet little baby in the straw became the suffering man on that cross. The sin that caused the separation from God and dissolution of all peace on earth demanded a payment. That is what the coming of a Savior is all about.

Now if I can somehow relate the giving of those pretty presents under my Christmas tree with the gift God gave on Calvary's tree, I may have rediscovered the reason for the season. I don't want to be a humbug. I don't see anything wrong with getting families together to exchange gifts and share a special meal, but I can no longer equate what we have made Christmas into with what happened in Judea back when the time had fully come and God sent forth his son as a love gift so that whoever believes on him will not perish but have eternal life. If you must raise your eggnog, toast that.

Twelve Twelve Twelve

At 12:12 on 12/12/12 it was only 12 days until Christmas. I slept through it.

Having missed the moment, I have been meditating all day about what to write on this momentous date, 12/12/12. It should be something really stupendous, tremendous or at least significant. Just about every metaphysical system ever dreamed up has a special place for the number 12. Twelve months in a year, twelve signs in the zodiac, twelve hours on the clock (unless you are military,) twelve peers on a jury, twelve days of Christmas, and did I mention that 12 is a dozen which is a typical number of donuts, certainly a metaphysical alignment if I ever heard one.

If you read the Bible closely, the number 12 comes up more than two dozen times. In Judaism it is the number of completeness. It appears throughout Scripture: twelve tribes, twelve apostles, twelve miles each way for the new Jerusalem. It is not recorded, but I would wager that the Garden was twelve square something. I have no doubt that God in his wisdom has built meaning into everything he has done; it often escapes us, but it is there whether we recognize it or not.

However, it is the height of hubris to think that a date on the Gregorian calendar would necessarily have universal symbolic meaning. The calendar we use today was not adopted until 1582 A.D. (or CE if you prefer.) While it is true that most of the civilized world has adopted this method of tracking time, it is by no means the oldest. There are several calendars far older. The date today on a Mayan calendar might be 8/11/3114. The Chinese would have us believe it is 10/29/4710. The Jewish date is 9/28/5773, measuring (as they believe) to the time of creation.

My point is that it is just like us egotistical Westerners to think that the entire universe revolves around us and our calendar. This same kind of thinking led dark ages clerics to burn at the stake heretics who suggested that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa. Oops! The heretics were right. Barely one generation before our enlightened forefathers settled on a calendar, their grandparents were scoffing at the plans of one Columbus of Genoa who thought he could sail west around the world and reach the east. I admit he miscalculated the distance, but he had the concept right. Thank goodness Ferdinand and Isabella were willing to finance his efforts.

As this momentous day nears its end, I think it is wonderful that thousands of couples were able to book their weddings today; it will be hard for those guys to forget the date of their anniversary (or not.) Hundreds of happy parents are gushing over their newborns who will forever carry 12/12/12 on their birth certificates. In addition, I am certain that many people will have had meaningful things happen today, and they will record 12/12/12 as one of the best or worst days of their lives. Beyond that, I suspect that most people will record absolutely nothing today.

That is a shame. Not only is today the first day of the rest of your life, today is the last day of all the days that have gone before. More importantly, today is the only day you have to live. Instead of looking for significance in astrology, numerology, cosmology or any-ology, you should be looking for the best way to use the moment you are in right now. Maybe it is nine days to the end of the world as Mayan speculators predict (12/21/12.) More important, for more than 150,000 people, today was the end of their world, or I should say their life on earth.

So there it is: it does not matter what today's date is. What matters is what your next address is. Every body ends up in a six foot box in a six foot hole, but every soul lives on through eternity. The most important date in my life was 4/21/63; that's when I sealed the deal on my eternal destiny. Although there is a metaphysical sense in which I have been seated with Jesus in heaven ever since that day, practically speaking, whatever the date on whatever calendar I use I am called to live each day I get on earth as if heaven matters most. I believe it truly does.

Living with Infamy

"I do not believe in using women in combat because women are too fierce." Margaret Mead

Back on December 7, the day that FDR said would live in infamy, I saw a story that should also live there, but it probably won’t, given the slouch toward Gommorah we are rapidly assuming. Blake Page, a West Point cadet, announced his resignation only five months before he would have graduated. There is so much about this story that is ironic, not least of which is the timing, but maybe he gave no thought to its relationship to Pearl Harbor and everything it stands for.

I marveled slightly at the fact that he couldn’t wait another few months after what he describes as an untenable situation he bore up under for years. He claims that he has suffered grievous discrimination due to his sexual preference – one guess as to what that is. He claims that he and his fellow homosexuals are regularly subjected to hazing, bullying, loss of privileges and denied advancement into the select few that make up the top tier of the Academy. Because Obama rescinded don’t-ask-don’t-tell, the cadet was able to openly lead a gay organization on campus. But apparently this wasn’t enough to keep him there for one more semester. He claims he has been suffering with depression over what to do about his cause.

The cadet claims that the discrimination came predominately from what he called “evangelical” Christians in the Academy. He felt that his First Amendment rights to freedom from religion (sic) were being violated. I wonder if some brand of religion shouldn’t be required of all West Point graduates as sine qua non of their preparedness. It is as W. T. Cummings has said, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” This being the case, an atheist leader would be unprepared for the experience of warfare; he would be unprepared to lead his men (and women) into battle.

This story parallels one from a couple weeks ago about female military personnel suing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta because they are not allowed to claim combat experience. They say it restricts their ability to qualify for the higher ranks because combat experience weighs heavily in the process of advancement. They claim that their current assignments, although different from their male peers, still involve them in combat situations, so the distinction is, in their estimation, unconstitutional.

In both of these stories, whether the protagonists are gay, atheist, or female, we have "jumped the shark" in the debate. The military is by nature a very specialized institution. While it is a necessary part of maintaining a civil society, it is nonetheless an atypical environment. While our society may wish for gays, atheists and females to have totally unrestricted access to all other aspects of modern life, there must be an exception carved out for military training and service.

The place of the military establishment in society is purposely on the fringe. As long as there are people in the world who want to kill us and break our things, we need a matching force willing to do likewise. However, I do not think this force must mirror the rest of society; in fact, I hope it does not. I want our military to be trained, practiced experts in doing things in the war zone that would be unthinkable in a school zone, hospital zone, a residential zone or any other zone not embroiled in battle. To do these atypical things requires atypical skills and relationships.

Our society wants to act like men and women are alike in every way except for some obvious biological differences. Society wants to ignore the fact that the biological differences are merely the physical evidence of fundamental ontological differences. Man was created a different being than woman with different responsibilities and different processing equipment (if you will.) Men are from Mars (the god of war) and women are from Venus (the goddess of love.)

Because of the inherent differences between men and women, they relate to one another and to the opposite sex differently. Plug these different styles into a battle scene and problems develop immediately. One obvious issue involves the risk of capture; men don't have to worry about being raped if they are captured; women certainly do. A battlefield commander would be reluctant (or should be) to send women into front line situations where capture is likely. Men in battle will by nature think differently about their comrades-in-arms if they are female. I believe this means that even if women were given the same assignments as men, there would be a de facto differentiation in their front line deployment.

The reason I have been discussing women in battle after starting with Cadet Page's homosexual complaint is because gays serving openly in the military present many of the same issues. The LGBT lobby's argument is that certain people are born in the wrong body; they claim some people are women in men's bodies and vice versa. It follows logically that these women-in-men's-bodies would present the same difficulties as women in women's bodies. The same awkwardness in relationships would surface making the prosecution of war more difficult than it already is.

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly have been warning about the feminization of our culture. It is interesting that no one seems to be calling for the masculinization of women. Perhaps it is worth asking why that is the case. If true egalitarianism were the driving force, it would be logical for those interested to be advocating for women to become more like men as men are asked to become more like women. This is clearly not the case.

I believe this is true in part because of a strong undercurrent in modern progressive thinking that the traditional patriarchal structure of society is inferior to a matriarchal one. Witness the rise of the goddess movement, Gaia and Wiccan religion, all oriented around feminine power. Even popular literature like Dan Brown's novels pervert religious history by suggesting that the true scion of Jesus was a woman. The Prince of Darkness hates the Father of Light and will do anything to diminish his image in humans.

Lest I be misunderstood, I believe the imageo dei (image of God) is both masculine and feminine; this is why (in my humble opinion) he had to create both male and female: neither would alone be sufficient to reflect the totality of who he is. Because of this I believe we should celebrate gender differences instead of trying to ignore them. I also believe this is why God is so repulsed by homosexuality: this perversion shatters the imagery of his perfect creation. And, with all due respect to the ladies, I think the battlefield is no place for women or for men who think they are women.

No Grown-ups in DC

I have not posted in a while. This is partly due to the fact that I have been writing an essay that was due this week. (Yes, students, teachers are given assignments too.) There were more than a few times in recent weeks when a subject had my fingers itching, but I was so nearly burned out after the election cycle that I forced myself to stay on the bench. I submitted my rough draft yesterday (on time) and I can hold out no longer.

One wants to ask whether there is even one grown-up left in Washington D.C. The most obvious example of our elected officials acting like small children is the so-called fiscal cliff situation. I am not an economist and I don't play one on TV (parody Robert Young,) but it is plain to any thinking adult that no entity, not governmental nor commercial nor domestic, can continue to spend more than it takes in and remain functional. The word "fiscal" softens the real impact of the "cliff" we are approaching.

Fiscal means having to do with money. Money is what makes the world go 'round. A cliff is a sudden drop-off where ostensibly one loses one's footing, perhaps falling out of control into some depth of disaster. The "fiscal cliff" is, therefore, a looming economic disaster. Listening to the Republicans and Democrats take shots at each other you would think the only disaster they have in view is the reduction of their political power.

If a true disaster were pending and the pols would admit it, they would look like they did on September 12, 2001. The mutuality and cooperation on that day seem like something out of a fairy tale in light of the shenanigans in D.C. today. I try to imagine what it would have been like if both parties had seen the airliners coming at the buildings on 9/11. Would the elephants have bellowed at the donkeys that their policies had reduced the covert operations of our government to such a paucity that we could not foresee the attack? Would the donkeys bray at the elephants that the attack would not be pending if Bush had not invaded Iraq? Would they continue slinging slurs until the planes smashed into their targets?

Although the question seems ridiculous, we are witnessing exactly the same scenario if the economic situation is as dire as they propose. In fact, the analogy can be extended: we had seen a precursor to 9/11 a few years prior when attempts were made to topple the towers in 1991 and 1993. Attacks on embassies and the USS Cole should have continued to sound the alarm. The market crash of October of 2008 is the parallel to the 1991 bombing. The housing crisis and subsequent multiple bail-outs are also directly analogous. Yet the children in Washington continue to act as if there are not fiscal planes heading for our financial towers.

The present posturing of the political classes makes one wonder which side of their mouths to listen to. If their shared warning concerning the frightful consequences of going over the cliff are true, then their behavior vis a vis the necessary compromise with their adversaries is worse than childish: it is mutually diabolical. On the other hand, if one party is correctly assessing the situation and the other party is to blame for blocking sincere efforts to find a solution, then the party guilty of blocking is alone contemptible if not traitorous. I suspect the truth may lie somewhere in the middle.

More and more one hears commentators suggesting that the best solution to our current crisis is to do nothing and let the cliff do its work. A businessman who is good friend of mine suggested after Obama was elected in 2008 that the only way people would realize their mistake would be for his policies to drive our nation to its knees. We may be there now: on our knees with a fiscal gun to the back or our head and no way to keep the hit man from pulling the trigger.

The image of being on our knees is doubly appropriate. Financially and politically we have been forced to our knees and an execution seems immanent. But being on our knees also suggests a posture of spiritual and emotional destitution, a place from which there is no recourse but to turn to God in prayer. That too smacks of September 12, 2001. It is sad but true that only destitution seems capable of driving us arrogant, up by the bootstraps Americans to a place of need. Choose your analogy: "Jesus Take the Wheel" as Carrie Underwood sang a few years back, or, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit," as Jesus said at his execution. Either implies that childlike faith Jesus commended. If only our representatives would start acting childlike instead of childish.

A Modest Proposal (2012)

I have an answer to the divided political situation that plagues America.

Divide. That seems to be the only workable solution in a country where we split almost right down the middle on virtually all the fundamental issues we face. Both parties say there must be compromise to get anything done, but neither wants to make any real concessions to reach an agreement. Obama's idea of compromise is Republicans agreeing to his agenda. The Republican efforts at compromise tend to look like the George W. Bush era which, frankly, was satisfying to neither conservatives nor liberals.

Why not just give up on the idea that we need to remain fifty united states? Who says fifty is a magic number anyway. Have you looked at the electoral map of the last election? Geography doesn't really matter that much in our digital age, but for convenience sake, we could remain pretty contiguous in the new nation (under God) I propose. The "other guys" would be splintered and scattered, but that seems poetically justifiable. (Click this link to see my map.)

Most of  the current states that are equally divided can be partitioned easily. Virginia lets D.C. annex the surrounding counties. Pennsylvania can split somewhere between the I-76 and I-80 corridors. Ohio could do the same using I-70 and I-80. Michigan just gives the south east counties to North Ohio. They wanted that land back in the Toledo War anyway, so let them have it. (I would let them take everything west to Lansing if they wanted, although I know some State fans who would object.) We may have to continue the division across northern Indiana and Illinois even though I realize that cuts off West Michigan (my new home state) from her sisters to the south. I could live with that since I am not giving up the entire Great Lakes to the other guys. Add parts of Iowa and pretty much all of Wisconsin and Minnesota and you have the tier complete.

Moving out west, I suspect if division fever really strikes, there might be three different countries along the coast. Seattle is so distinctly different from San Francisco which is different from San Diego that I don't see them making nice. Oregon would probably go along with Washington, but I don't know the politics there well enough to predict. I would love to see San Diego vote with our side; they have the best weather anywhere and that would give us a Pacific seaport. This would be contiguous with the southern tier also. I wouldn't complain if Nevada went with the rest of the left coast fruitcakes; gambling and deserts would be no loss.

So there you have it. I know it gets a little sloppy with my insistance on keeping West Michigan and the U.P. in our camp. There are doubtless hundreds of other similar issues buried in my simplistic division of states with which I am unfamiliar. I don't care. This is what I call compromise. As for the names of these two new nations, I propose the Central States of America for our side and the Discontinuous Democratic Socialist Atheist Union of Like-minded Liberals for their side. Or they can pick their own name.

They can have the Navy and the Marines and the Coast Guard; we will take the Army and the Air Force. They can have the paper dollar and we will go back on the gold standard. We will keep Old Glory and they can have the LGBT flag or whatever they want. We will declare English the official language of our country, but we will universally teach Spanish as a second language in our schools and invite everyone to assimilate into our traditional American culture. We will keep the borders open with the DDSAULL (or whatever they choose to call themselves,) but we will close the border with Mexico and invite everyone who lives in our territory to become citizens with all the rights and privileges and responsibilities pertaining thereto.

Any citizen who can pass a rigorous background check (parameters to be decided) can carry a weapon openly or concealed. All religions will be free to practice as they wish, but the Bible will be brought back into schools and used as a moral foundation for all students. Prayer to whatever God one chooses will be welcomed. Homosexual practices will be treated the same as smoking or alcohol abuse; these behaviors create unwanted health problems and shorten life expectancy and as such should be warned against, not promoted. This is not a moral judgment; it is a general welfare consideration.

We will have no IRS. Revenue will be generated by a consumption tax on all purchases except groceries. Manufacturers will pay the tax on capital expenditures but not raw materials (trying to avoid double taxation.) Deficit spending and government borrowing will be illegal; all spending will be based on projection of revenue. All government entities will be required to operate under a balanced budget which will be submitted prior to the fiscal year for which it applies. Medicare and Social Security allotments will be deducted from revenue on a per capita actuarial basis and placed in escrow from which payments will be made. A separate fund will be established for paying present citizens already receiving payments.

As for foreign policy, we will not join the United Nations. We will seek friendly relations with any nation that wishes to deal openly and honestly with us and their own people. We will not have military bases in any other nations unless they invite us and pick up at least half the tab. The same deal goes for defending our allies. If they can't put up at least half of their own defense, we will not help them fight their battles. Fair trade treaties will be welcomed with any nation that applies.

There it is. I know this has been a rant: what I would do if I were king of the world. I needed this. After last Tuesday, I needed this. It was fun to think about. Could it ever happen? You tell me.

The Real Cliff is Behind Us

There must be a reason why this country could elect Obama twice.

So I’m standing in line to vote Tuesday and I hear a female voice behind me explaining how she made her voting choices saying, “I only look at the .orgs; the .coms are all biased.” Shocked, I turned around enough to see she was a twenty-something blonde in sweats and running shoes talking to an older matronly looking woman. My first thought was to say, “What are you; stupid or something?” I stifled that and said, “Oh, I knew you had to be blonde to make a comment as stupid as that one.” Okay, I didn’t say that either, but I wanted to.

This is how we elect someone as unqualified and decidedly incompetent as Barak Obama to a second term. All economic indicators are worse now than when Obama was elected in 2008. More people are unemployed and more on government assistance than during the Bush years. Our foreign policy is in a shambles. Think assassination of ambassadors and shooting at drones in international air space. Obama has commited to the public record more lies than the prevaricator-in-chief Bill Clinton, yet none of this information is making it to the blonde twenty-somethings who have voting rights. I wonder if the founding fathers’ idea that only certain select people should vote has merit.

The real problem is the media environment and education system we have fostered in America. Our education system no longer teaches the skill of critical thinking. We spoon feed answers to pre-selected questions. This is what I find my students in college expecting from me. The concept of coming to an answer through a process of reasoning is completely foreign to most of my students. Combine this with a media culture that feeds disinformation or outright falsehoods in attractive, entertaining packages (The Daily Show, for example) and you have a recipe for a misinformed electorate.

I typically don’t go in for conspiracy theories. I was not behind the movement to prove Obama was not born in the US, although I still wonder why he couldn’t provide a birth certificate. I know exactly where mine is. I didn’t agree with the critics who claimed Obama was a secret Muslim, although I know from his policies and pastors he is not the kind of Christian I am. No pastor of mine has ever said, “God damn America.” The bottom line is that it does not take a conspiracy theory to see that the media deserves at least part of the credit for Obama’s reelection. Common sense says that his record should have doomed his reelection from the beginning. But since the media did not allow his true record to be shown, the voters like the blonde behind me in the voting line did not see the whole story and couldn’t vote on the facts. Add to that her misconceived idea that moveon.org is not biased.

Was it by some coincidence we didn’t learn about the President’s failure in the Benghazi affair until after the election. Why is it that the fiscal cliff everybody talks about won’t be dealt with until after the election. The so-called auto bail-out by the President will never be shown as the government take-over it was because the media won’t tell it like it is. The loss of religious liberty hidden in Obamacare won’t make it to the public consciousness. Each of these unwritten stories remain because the major media outlets are infatuated with Obama.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said our republic would not survive without an educated electorate. I am afraid we have reached the point where survival is unlikely. If there are many more like the blonde behind me in the voting line, we are doomed. I suspect I am late coming to this conclusion; we just reelected a man who had no business being President in the first term. That he was reelected proves there is a cliff behind us worse than the so-called fiscal cliff ahead. It was the educated electorate cliff, and we have already flown over the edge.

Don't Ask Why

If a good god is in control, how can a 12 year old get raped by her father?

The eternal question of why bad things happen to good people resurfaced this week with the comments by Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock. He was widely reported as saying that rape is God's will. What he said precisely was, "Life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.” His comment propelled many people into a philosophical highdive into the deep end of the theology pool.

John South, a jail chaplain from Arizona, said that he knew of a twelve year old who was being raped repeatedly by her father. She came to the jail pregnant. CNN reports that South said, "that the girl... opted for an abortion and her father was ultimately convicted of rape. He said he grappled often with why she was subjected to such horrendous pain and torture, mentally, physically and emotionally. 'Did it shake my faith? No,' South said. 'Did I ask God why? Of course.'”

CNN also sought comment from Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of the best-selling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People.  Kushner said Mourdock’s remarks were off-base: “He’s invoking the will of God where it is not appropriate." The Catholic perspective was provided by Father Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. He said he found Mourdock’s comments troubling from a Catholic perspective because “God does not want rape to happen. Someone getting pregnant through rape simply means biology continues to function. That doesn’t mean God wills it."

So where is God in all this. People like Kushner set up a false dilemma by saying either God is not good, or else He is not all-powerful, both characteristics which traditional Bible scholars hold to be true. This is a false dilemma because it imagines a world where God must operate according to Rabbi Kushner's rules. In the real world created by the God of the Bible, evil exists because sin entered when Adam and Eve chose to reject God's perfect plan. The entire Bible narrative is about God's work to redeem the fallen creation, not least of all, sinful humans.

Father Reese makes a different but no less misleading suggestion that some things happen outside of God's will. Here things get sticky, and many people jump ship theologically speaking because the truth is not pretty. The truth as orthodox Christianity has presented it for centuries is that God is sovereign over all His creation. This uncomfortable position includes the question of evil. The book of Job and the record of God's dealing with recalcitrant Israel prove this to be the case, as it must be. If God were not in control of everything, then logic dictates that He could ultimately be in control of nothing.

John South said his experience with the pregnant incest victim made him ask God why she was subjected to such horror. This is precisely where most people fall victim to humanistic thinking. There are many things about God that we cannot know. The realm of "why" is filled with those things. The things we can know about God are revealed in the Scriptures and are accessible to anyone who will sincerely look for them. But we must not look only for answers we like. It may be that God, being sovereign will choose to do things mere mortals cannot understand. He may do things, allow things we will honestly hate.

In a fallen world, 12 year olds will be raped. This is not God's fault; this is man's fault for turning from God's perfect ways. The good news is that we are not trapped in the downward spiral of evil that assaults us every waking moment. We have a Savior; we have an escape; we have the assurance that even the worst imaginable thing can be turned into good eventually by the good God who works all things together for His purposes. We must not ask God why; we must ask what: what am I to learn from this. And then we must wait patiently for the day when evil is removed from the earth and righteoussness reigns. The only legitimate why quiestion might be, "Why not today?"

Say What You Mean, Joe

I never thought I'd find myself supporting Joe Biden over Paul Ryan.

Maybe it is going too far to say I support Biden's position, but I think he may have stated the role of personal faith in politics correctly last night in his debate with Paul Ryan. Moderator Martha Raddatz pointed out that both debaters were Catholic and asked how that faith would affect their governing.

Ryan said he believed that life begins at conception then went straight to the campaign position that abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. This position is not logically sustainable (see my earlier post,) nor is it proper Catholic teaching. According to Catholics for Choice, "The Catholic church hierarchy today does not permit abortion in any instance, not even in case of rape or as a direct way of saving the life of a pregnant woman." Historically, given the tough choice between saving a mother or her child, the Catholic position has been to save the child. The Ryan position fails both as a reflection of his faith and as a logically defensible argument.

Biden, on the other hand, gave a slightly more consistent answer. He said he too believed that life begins at conception and was against abortion as a personal matter of faith. However, he said that he did not believe he had the right to impose his religious beliefs on society. Much as I hate to say it, I must agree with Joe; America was founded as and continues to be a place where citizens may embrace any religion or none at all with no interference from government - almost.

The flaw in the pro-choicers' argument stems from the basic position outlined by both men in last night's debate: life begins at conception. While the Judeo-Christian scriptures do support this claim, it is more than a religious principle. Logic firmly supports it as well. There is no way to distinguish between the fertilized egg and the post-partum result of that fertilization. The humanity of the life form is different only by degree. As I said in my earlier post, it is a slippery slope to begin judging which humans are human enough to deserve to live.

Ryan (and ostensibly his running mate) wants to allow the murder of innocents if circumstances seem to warrant it. This violates the principles of both faith and reason. Biden (and Obama) are equally inconsistent. It sounds democratic (small "d") to say one will not allow personal ideology to influence public policy. Forgetting the ridiculous impossibility of such a position, this too violates faith and reason. It is unreasonable because one who believes that life begins at conception (a logical conclusion) cannot condone the taking of that life for any reason. It violates Joe's faith because his church disagrees.

Ken Ham has been correctly preaching for years that as Christians in society, we should focus on battling the foundational flaws in humanistic philosophy (aka religion,) rather than merely opposing its policies. Laws must be founded on some ideal; moral relativism leads to anarchy when what's right for you may not be right for me. To see the frightening result of such thinking, one need only read a few words by such Pragmatists as the old William James and John Dewey or the newer spokesmen, Cornel West and Richard Rorty. Peter Singer, a utilitarian pragmatist from Princeton, who appears to have ice water in his veins, will positively terrify any thoughtful, considerate human being with his support of outright infanticide and euthanasia.

I still plan to vote for Romney/Ryan because I believe their position on abortion is closer to mine than Obama/Biden, but I wish someone would stake out a truly pro-life position. I also wish Christian politicians would stop wobbling on their faith commitment. Everyone makes decisions based on some assumption about truth. This nation was unashamedly founded on the assumption that a Creator invested humans with inalienable rights and the government's job is to protect those rights.

Muslims, Bhuddists and atheists are all safe under an American government anchored to Biblical principles. The same cannot be said for Christians under a Muslim government. It certainly would not be true if Peter Singer were king. And apparently, there will still be a few of the unborn who will not be safe even under a Romney/Ryan administration. That's a shame.

Free Expression

Here is a contrast worth thinking about.

In Libya religious extremists are carrying signs and blasting US consulates with RPG's as an expression of their faith, and in Jakarta religious extremists carry signs reading "F**K America." Meanwhile, in Kountze, Texas religious extremists are carrying signs and playing high school football "for the Lord Jesus God and my teammates." No one can honestly say these contrasting expressions are morally equivalent. I see the contrast in a different light.

As a soccer coach at a Christian high school, I encouraged the pre-game prayers my team wanted. But it always bothered me a little that the players on the other side were praying to the same God with different opinions of what would be a blessed outcome to the contest. I tried to steer the boys away from asking God to give them victory over the opponents; pray for strength; pray for safety; pray that our actions would be God-honoring, but let the score be left in God's hands without lobbying on our part. "In all things we are more than conquerors" applies to winners and losers of soccer games, I thought.

It has occurred to me more than once that God-fearing people in Germany and the United States would have been in a similar position in December of 1944. As the Panzers rumbled into the Ardennes forest, both sides were praying for safety, strength, and that God (the same God, I assume) would be honored by their team. The real possibility of a life-or-death outcome doubtless motivated thousands of prayers for victory on both sides. Speaking anthropomorphically, that must have given God a headache.

Fast forward back to today. Islamic jihadists celebrate death and destruction as part of their religious creed. (Yes, I know not all Muslims are jihadists.) The death and destruction of America is at the top of their list. Knowing this, it is hard to fathom why any US official would call for understanding and tolerance when violence like we are seeing in the Mideast breaks in upon our outposts there. It is especially difficult to understand in light of the repeated gagging of free expression in the homeland like that of the cheerleaders in Kountze. You can't play football in God's name, but we understand if you want to burn our embassies for Allah. Right.

The Associated Press reports that Superintendent Weldon told KVUE-TV "while people in the stands and students are allowed to express their religious beliefs, no person officially representing the school as part of a team or school-sponsored event can." My advice to those cheerleaders is resign from the squad and keep making those banners. '"I'm actually thankful for (the controversy)," cheerleader Ashton Jennings said to KVUE-TV. "Because if someone hadn't complained, or if there hadn't been any opposition we wouldn't have this chance to spread God's word in this big of a way."' You go girl! And Go Kountze Lions!

Why on Earth Does Heaven Matter?

I am taking a break from politics today.

My church is doing a series on "authentic" Christianity. Genuine, true, and valid are synonyms for "authentic." "Fake" is listed as an antonym; that gets to the point, I think. I'm not a perfect Christian by any means, and I don't claim to be the Judge of the world, but it seems like there are a lot of people "faking" Christianity these days. Taking a few Sundays to hear once again what it means to truly follow Christ is a good exercise.

Last Sunday we looked at authentic worship. "Worship" is from an Old English word, "worthship." In essence it means  to ascribe worth to something. As "owner-ship" identifies an owner, "worth-ship" identifies what has worth. Genuine, true, valid Christian worship is an attitude that values God above all else; in other words, it explains why heaven always matters most. In practice it means I cannot be authentic if I only worship in church on Sunday, but I must also find ways to worship at home, at work and at play.

It can be difficult to worship at home. When we were raising our three children, there were times when one of them or another seemed less like gifts from God and more like thorns in our flesh. My wife is a wonder (it's a wonder that she has stuck with me these forty-plus years.) I sometimes have to force myself to see past her flaws (which are few) and ignore the ways she bugs me (which are probably my inventions) and remember she too is God's gift to me. My family, like all humans, each carry the image of God and as such deserve all the worth I can ascribe. I do not worship them; I worship the God in whose image they exist.

For many of my working years, worshiping at work was relatively easy: I taught in Christian schools. Reverence for God was part of pretty much every activity connected with my job. Now that I am in a secular setting, I have no less demand to worship, I just have less external impetus driving me to it. Still, I see my boss in light of the Scriptural command to honor and obey whole-heartedly. I see my students as image bearers who, like all humans have indescribable worth. Whether I "like" them or don't, I treat each one with the dignity and hope reserved for the pinnacle of God's creation.

My favorite forms of recreation are sailing, biking (pedal and motor) and hunting. It is easy for me to worship when I am sailing. I feel especially close to nature and the Creator when I am forced to pay such close attention to the wind and the waves to make the boat move. The serenity of being on the water (or the majesty when it storms) draws me into a state that must be called worship. I get a similar sense when on a bike. The open air, the immediacy of sight, sound and scent can be a religious experience. It is the same when I take to the woods. Since I so seldom actually shoot anything, I should probably drop the hunting ruse and just take hikes, but there is something visceral about carrying a powerful weapon around. (That part probably is less in the nature of worship, I realize.)

Brother Lawrence (Practice the Presence of God) liked to imagine that even the insignificant piece of straw in his path was placed there by God. In The Root of the Righteous, A.W. Tozer said, "The whole life must pray." I often say, "Nothing is without significance." When that significance is rooted in my understanding that God has orchestrated every detail and detour of my existence, then I can begin to authentically worship. At that point, even though I am stuck on earth for a while yet, it is heaven that matters most.

Hoping to Move Forward

He still wants us to hope he can change things.

President Obama’s speech to the Democrat National Convention last night was masterful. The delivery, the affectations, the cadence were flawless. Had I no sense of recent history or concern for credibility, I would have been as rapt and teary-eyed as many in the hall in Charlotte. As a speech teacher, I have to say the President’s address was a rhetorical delight. As a concerned citizen of America, I consider it a disaster.

While the speech was a treat to the ears, there were many minor issues with the content such as accusing Republicans of saying things they have never said or holding positions they have never held. He made a few fantastic remarks like praising Joe Biden as the best Vice President he could have hoped for. There was the misleading statement or two like claiming to have saved the auto industry when in fact he stole it from its rightful owners and gave it to his political cronies. There was the false implication that everything would be fine if the rich just paid their fair share (see my last post.) This kind of half truth and disingenuous dissembling is expected in politicians, especially today’s Democrats.

There were also glaring omissions from the President’s address. He did not mention that in his efforts to save the economy he has racked up about the same debt  in three years that George W. Bush did in eight. While he still blames Bush for the fiscal mess he found when he took office in 2009, he failed to mention that it was the Bush surge (which he opposed) that made it possible for him to pull troops out of Iraq. Likewise, he failed to mention that it was the Bush military apparatus (which he hopes to dismantle) that made killing Osama Bin Laden possible. Finally, he did not mention the critical fact that the Bush debt covered the prosecution of two costly wars which spread democracy and liberated fifty million people from murderous tyrants.

Besides all the typical political soft shoeing, there were two major problems with the content of the President’s speech in spite of its delicious delivery. First, the speech contained nothing but promises to do what he has not been able to do in his first term. He promised America four years ago that he would fix just about everything, including the rising of the oceans. By any measure one applies, things are not fixed; they are worse than when Obama took over. He belittled the Republicans for saying nothing specific about how they would do things, and then proceeded to offer nothing but lofty goals with no mention of how they could be attained. In other words, he made more promises.

Second, while the President’s desire to help people is laudable, it is fiscally irresponsible. He does not seem to grasp the irony of loading an enormous debt on the backs of future generations as a means to secure America’s future. We would all like to see that child get the operation she needs, or the young man have his college tuition paid or the displaced worker trained in a new trade. Sadly, honestly these well-intentioned, charitable acts cannot be paid for except by borrowing money or printing it. We have both borrowed and printed money to the point now where even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office is talking about the “fiscal cliff” we are in danger of tumbling over.

This has been an unabashed, partisan rant. This space is supposed to glance heavenward, but I do not want to imply what Senator Durbin accused Fox News’ Bret Baier of doing: insinuating the Democrats are godless. Let us assume President Obama was sincere when he said, like Lincoln, he is driven to his knees by the immensity of his responsibilities. Let us do the one thing we can do as Christians to affect our government (besides voting.) Let us ask God to speak clearly to whomever we elect to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly before the One to whom they will eventually give an account. We can do no less; we can do no more.

The Sin of Class Warfare

If it's not class warfare, what is it?

San Antonio mayor Julian Castro became the first Hispanic to deliver a keynote speech at a Democrat National Convention last night. His face may be new, but his message is old: old and tiring. Castro repeated the Democrat mantra that their pitch is not intended to be class warfare, not intended to stir up feelings of envy or friction between the rich and the not-so-rich. They may say this constant banging of the same drum is not supposed to be class warfare, but what else can it be?

If it is not class warfare, perhaps it is ignorance. Perhaps the Dems are ignorant of the fact that recent statistics show that the top 5% of earners in this country pay nearly 60% of all taxes. Perhaps they are ignorant of the fact that the top 1%  of earners (those despised by the 99) paid 39% of all taxes in 2009. Put another way, the top 1% had only 17% of total income, but paid nearly 40% of the taxes collected that year. In fact, if the total annual earnings of the 1% were deposited in the Federal treasury (that's a 100% tax rate,) its effect on the budget would be like putting one brick in the Great Wall of China.

If the Democrats' cry for the 1% to do their "fair share" is not class warfare, perhaps it is a misunderstanding. Perhaps we do not share the same meaning of the word "fair." If paying the lion's share of taxes does not constitute a "fair share," perhaps we need to recognize what "fair" means to today's progressives. Although they hate being called socialists, their wealth redistribution policies clearly lean in that direction (see my blog on that.)  "Fair" to a socialist is everyone earning the same amount; no one is rich and no one is poor. The problem with this understanding of "fair" is that every time it has been tried, while the citizens do become equally poor, there are still the rich. Those who decide how to manage the redistribution of wealth always seem to hang onto a substantial portion for themselves.

If the Democrat mantra is not class warfare or ignorance or misunderstanding, perhaps it is just one example of the change we were invited to share in with Barak Obama. It certainly represents a change from the way we used to see ourselves. To quote Condaleezza Rice at the Republican National Convention, "My fellow Americans, ours has never been a narrative of grievance and entitlement. We have never believed that I am doing poorly because you are doing well. We have never been jealous of one another and never envious of each others' successes." The Democrats want us to believe that the generation of wealth is a zero sum game: if one person gets rich, inevitably someone else must be made poor. This simply is not so.

I believe that an intelligent observer must conclude that the Democrats are in fact trying to create division in the electorate. They are using what has long been called class warfare to incite the middle and lower classes to vote on the basis of their feelings of envy and entitlement. They want voters to forget what Mitt Romney would call the norm in our country: "In America we celebrate success; we don't apologize for success," he said in his RNC acceptance speech. As Christians we are commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice (in their success too.) As Christians we are commanded not to be envious (to covet) our neighbors' possessions.

The Democrats are trying to make us break both of these commands. The scary thing is that this tactic is proving successful. In a country where over 50% of citizens pay no Federal income tax at all, where nearly 50% of households receive some type of government aid, it is no wonder that a large number of people want the gravy train to continue. This is scary because it could be our undoing. To quote Rice again, "There is no country, no, not even a rising China that can do more harm to us than we can do to ourselves if we do not do the hard work before us here at home." It is often "hard work" to avoid being drawn into sin. We must not let the Democrats take us there, no matter what they call their program.

Back to Black and White TV

 

President Obama told an Iowa campaign audience that watching the Republican National Convention was so last century, like watching black and white TV.  It occurs to me that this may be the nicest thing he could have said about the party in Tampa. I was born precisely in the middle of the last century, and I happen to think there was much to be recommended in those black and white days. If I could respond personally to President Obama, I might like to say that I long for something like the world of black and white TV.

Like black and white TV where Rob and Laura Petrie slipped into separate beds after an innocent good-night kiss leaving us to wonder where little Richie came from, instead of the panting, sweaty revelations that tele-voyeurism provides today.

Like black and white TV where the Lone Ranger and Ward Cleaver proclaimed the rightness of doing the right thing no matter the cost instead of the blackguards and wizards of today who question the very existence of the right thing.

Like black and white TV where true journalists like Walter Cronkite assured us “That’s the way it is” without propagandizing or pandering like today’s news anchors who fabricate “facts” to smear their chosen candidate’s opponent.

Like black and white TV where President Kennedy (a different sort of Democrat from you, Sir) proclaimed that citizens should “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” rather than a White House which advertises entitlements and denigrates honest labor when it leads to great success.

Like black and white TV where many of us (who could not yet afford color) watched Neil Armstrong complete with one small step the giant leap dramatically dictated by JFK only a few years earlier, unlike your policy, Mr. President, which Armstrong declared, "devastating," and condemned the United States to "a long downhill slide to mediocrity."

Like black and white TV where we all recoiled at George Wallace (another  Democrat) as he shouted some of the last of the obscenities hurled before the Civil Rights Act began to repair  the mistake perpetrated by the Founders.

Like black and white TV where there were admittedly scary scenes of nuclear holocaust perpetrated by the Red Menace, but where we remained steadfast in the conviction that might does not make right, but right often needs might to survive.

Like black and white TV where a very young Ronald Reagan stood before a Republican audience supporting Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run for President and said, "it's not that liberals are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

This last is really the crux of the issue for me.  John Noonan pointed out in a 2007 Townhall.com article that liberals (that’s you, Mr. President) seem to assume a religious zeal in attacking their opponents, truth be damned. Well, Mr. President, there you go again (said Reagan.) It so happens that many of us in this country don’t think of the black and white days as all that bad. In fact, much of what they had to offer is far to be preferred to what you have brought with your “Hope and Change.” If “Forward” is your slogan, that backward may be exactly what this country needs. Back to fiscal responsibility; back to moral decency; back to personal industry; back to mere Christianity. Back to black and white TV.

Islam's Trojan Horse (Built by Democrats)

The Democrat National Convention will open with a Muslim prayer.

The DNC says that there will also be Catholic representation in the multi-faith group at the convention, but it does not want New York archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan to be there. This sounds like payback for Dolan's opposition to Obamacare's insistence that Catholic institutions offer birth control. Conspiracy theorists and Republican campaign outliers would like to make this proof that Obama favors Islam over Christianity. I doubt this is the case.

Even a radical multi-culturalist like Barak Obama must see that snubbing the "Pope of America" in favor of exclusive Muslim prayer would be political suicide. An official with the Obama campaign admitted that there will be a "high ranking" person from the Catholic church invited to the DNC convention. "Both/and" not "either/or" is the Democrat way. No surprise here. However, this incident highlights one of the dangers of the multi-cultural agenda and it showcases another way the Democrats can be distinguished from the Republicans.

This discussion must be undergirded with the premise that America is a pluralist society, not a Christian society. The founding fathers' concept of religious freedom embraces at least one tenet that is lacking from many other religious systems, Islam in particular. The First Amendment freedom of religion guarantees all religions the right of expression without government interference. That Constitutional freedom ends, however, when the religious expression impinges on the rights of others to believe or act differently. The Quran is not equally tolerant, and this generation has seen the radical outworking of that intolerance, particularly since 9/11.

The Blaze has a particularly revealing article about the real intentions of the Muslims who are spearheading their prayer service at the DNC. The biography of Siraj Wahhaj, the head Imam in this operation, is particularly frightening. He is quoted by one interviewer saying,  “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.” And in another instance, “it is his duty and our duty as Muslims to replace the US Constitution with the Quran…we need to speak up!”

This raises a paradox of freedom question: must religious freedom include the right to espouse a religion that would exterminate all other religions? Asked another way, does our Constitution grant citizens the right to abolish the Constitution? This is where the question of minority rights becomes tricky. If a minority of citizens wants to rewrite the Constitution, they must enlist the majority on their side. This is what the civil rights movement accomplished, as I see it; not a rewrite, but an amendment process within the Constitutional framework. This is fine.

A replacement of the Constitution with the Quran, with Sharia law is a different matter. Until Muslims become a majority, this eventuality is impossible to imagine. That said, our current system must allow a voice and a place for those who wish to see the Constitution replaced. This must be the position of Christians as well as Muslims. The only ground on which Christians can fight for their own freedom is that which guarantees all others their freedom as well.

Conditions already exist which begin to limit the free expression of the Christian religion. The outgoing Air Force chief recently forbade Christian officers from "proselytizing." There have long been complaints that public schools teachers can talk about any religion with their students except Christianity. The expression of certain Biblical views are now considered "hate speech" punishable in some jurisdictions. We must continue to fight this kind of discrimination.

But there must be limits to our freedoms. In the same way that freedom of speech cannot allow someone to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, we must consider how to handle religious zealots whose belief system is antithetical to our Constitution. If my religion required that I sacrifice a virgin on every full moon, the law against murder would trump my religious freedom. Similarly, if my religious views demand insurrection and the overthrow of the majority, my actions must be curtailed. Without this restriction, we would have to allow homicide bombers to express themselves without legal consequence. 9/11 becomes just  a really dramatic religious expression; nothing wrong with that.

One hopes the Democrats weren't thinking this far when they allowed the expansion of Muslim activities at their convention. One wonders how they could even embrace someone as radical as the people who are coordinating the event. Robert Spencer pegged it in frontpagemag.com saying, "The Democrats are so in thrall to multiculturalism that it is likely that few, if any, DNC organizers know or care about Wahhaj’s Islamic supremacist statements and ties." One risks being called Islamophobic for saying so, but it is hard to imagine the Republicans being in this position. Again, one thing is clear: the two parties are radically unlike in what they support. A real choice is being offered: ride the horse George Washington rode, or climb on the Trojan horse the Democrats are building.

Whose War on Women?

Democrats claim Republicans are launching a war on women.

The irony is so thick you could cut it with a wooden spoon. The Democrats are trotting out every filly they have to run in the race started by Todd Akin's unfortunate comments about abortion last week. It begins to look as though Sandra Fluke (rhymes with look) is going to be the Dem's Joe the Plumber this election cycle. According to a response to a Michelle Malkin column, Fluke saw that Georgetown's insurance did not cover contraception and, "she decided to attend with the express purpose of battling this policy." If she is representative of the party, then another clear distinction between parties is being drawn.

Sandra Fluke made her debut in the news back in February when she protested the Georgetown University policy of excluding birth control from student health plans (see Washington Post.) This was in the midst of the media storm revealing that Obamacare would not give Catholic institutions an exemption from the requirement to provide birth control to employees, regardless of their long-standing opposition it.

The crux of Fluke's argument was that she represented a large body of women at Georgetown who wanted to have unrestricted access to birth control. Unless I am mistaken, the primary reason to take the pill is to prevent pregnancy, and pregnancy only happens after sexual intercourse. I think the Catholic church is also against that in extramarital circumstances. Doubtless some of the women Fluke claims to represent are married, thus avoiding the double jeopardy, but I have not found any indication that she meant to specify married women's rights, so her argument is twice flawed. She wants women to have the church-supported right to commit two sins (as defined by the Catholic church.)

While protestants agree to disagree on the ethics of birth control, there is no argument concerning sex outside of marriage: the Bible clearly says it is wrong. As Francis Fukayama insightfully suggested years ago in The End of History, easy access to effective birth control fundamentally changed society. Decoupling pregnancy from sexual coupling broke down the major barrier to non-professional female promiscuity. The subsequent lowering of resistance to and eventual wide acceptance of abortion as a method of birth control completed the revolution.

Society has arrived at the point where a woman not only can have, but according to Fluke, should be paid to have contraceptive options, making free love truly free, at least free of the emotional and financial burden of child rearing. One wonders, however, if there are not hidden costs in all this freedom. Not surprisingly, God had his reasons for sequestering sexual activity within the institution of marriage. In the same way that ignoring the law of gravity can have painful, long-term effects, flaunting the restrictions on sexual activity exact a price as well. Teen pregnancies and single-parent households, predominantly headed by women, are plaguing our society. No one can deny that these are results of sexual freedom and they cost us something.

Taking another tack, allowing men to have their choice of multiple sexual partners without committment does not raise the status of women; it lowers it. When women can dictate the terms of sexual engagement and demand commitment by the man, backed by society's moral framework, women become the real arbiters of power. But apparently the Fluke-style Democrat woman wants a different kind of freedom; she wants the freedom to have unlimited sex with any number of partners with no commitment by either participant. That is part of the Democrat platform. And it would be naive to deny that abortion is one nail in that party plank.

Progressives like to talk about abortion as a matter of women's reproductive rights. This terminology introduces a red herring: making abortion a reproductive right is the same as saying infanticide is a form of family planning. A woman's right to reproduce begins and ends with her right to control who gets into bed with her. "Not tonight , Dear; I have a headache," is supposed to be sufficient restraint for any gentleman. "Not until after the wedding," is supposed to be the societal norm, Christianly speaking.  Once again, Fukayama agrees saying, "moral values and social rules are not simply arbitrary constraints on individual choice but the precondition for any kind of cooperative enterprise." Democrats don't agree.

No discussion of women's rights would be complete without a question about the rights of some 27 million women who have been murdered since 1973. That is approximately how many female fetuses have been aborted since Roe v. Wade. Forget for the moment that it is biologically, philosophically and Biblically sound to insist that human life begins at conception. If an acorns gets crushed, the forest is minus one oak tree; if a tadpole gets eaten, there will be one less frog in the pond; if an embryo, fetus or whatever one calls the product of human conception gets terminated, one less human will have the chance to breathe.

Here is the distinction: you can march with the Democrat party of Sandra Fluke, or vote Republican with someone like Michelle Malkin who chided Rush Limbaugh, but continued, "Young Sandra Fluke of Georgetown Law is not a “slut.” She’s a moocher and a tool of the Nanny State. She’s a poster girl for the rabid Planned Parenthood lobby and its eugenics-inspired foremothers." If there is a war on women, the Democrat's policies have far more "kills" than the Republicans. Anyone who still thinks the two parties are the same is not paying attention.