The Political Illusion

Prime Cuts: Selected Quotes from DON'T VOTE, IT JUST ENCOURAGES THE BASTARDS by P.J. O'Rourke

2010-12-04T23:39:00.000-08:00

On freedom: "As unlikely a character as the crackpot Nietzsche has something to say: 'Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions.'"

"The important Richard Dawkins has written a book, The God Delusion, in which he uses predestinarian atheism to argue that Richard Dawkins is the closest thing to a superior being in the known universe."

On our reason for voting: "If it's any comfort, we should remind ourselves of the purpose of voting. We don't vote to elect great persons to office. They're not that great. We vote to throw the bastards out."

On Baby Boomers: "A gigantic global 'Not My Fault' project has been undertaken with heroic amounts of time, effort, and money devoted to psychology, psychotherapy, sociology, sociopaths, social work, social sciences, Scientology, science, chemistry, the brain, brain chemistry, serotonin reuptake inhibitors, inhibitions, sex, sex therapy, talk therapy, talk radio, talk radio personalities, personality disorders, drugs, drug-free school zones, Internet addiction, economics, the Fed, PMS, SATs, IQ, DNA, evolution, abortion, divorce, no-fault care insurance, the Democratic Party, diagnosis of attention deficit disorder in small boys...The list goes on...Neither freedom nor power is what I should have been obsessed with for all these years. But it's too late now. I'm a child of my era. And speaking of that era, here are three slogans from 1960s posters that never existed: 'Black Responsibility;' 'Sisterhood is Responsible;' 'Responsibility to the People.'"

On "The Pursuit of Happiness:" "The United States is the first -- and so far only --among happy nations. 'Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books,' wrote Thomas Carlyle. Just ask Americans a question about American history, watch them draw a blank, and you'll see that we are the happy people indeed...Happiness is hard to attain, harder to maintain, and hardest of all to recognize...The fact that we don't know when we are happy raises the disturbing posibility that you and I are wildly happy right now...'Pursuit of Happiness' replaced 'Property' in the Declaration of Independence not to denigrate material wealth but to expand the idea of materialism. America was established as a way for Americans to make and do things...Whether these things lead to great riches, pious satisfaction, or transitory pleasures is nobody's business by our own...We Americans are very, very busy, and we owe it all to three little words in our Declaration of Independence."

On the free market: "The free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. That's all the free market does. The free market is a bathroom scale. We may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we can't pass a law making ourselves weigh 165 pounds. Liberals and leftists think we can."

On class warfare: "Then there are the supposed unconscious, involuntary, or authomatic conspiracies that history engages us in, such as the Marxist class struggle. It's over. The social class know as assholes won."

On the US trade imbalance: There is no such thing as a trade deficit. It doesn't matter if the US imports all its goods from China and exports nothing but pieces of paper. The Americans want the iPad and the Chinese want the handsome portraits of Benjamin Franklin. This is free trade.

On gun ownership: Gun ownership is crucial to the preservation of American freedoms. We may have to shoot Democrats. It happened in 1861 and it could happen again.

On the "economic stimulus:" Assuming the American economy need a stimulus, there was an alternate way to provide it [other than the $787 billion bill passed by Congress]. For only a couple of hundred billion more than the cost of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act...all federal personal income taxes could have been eliminated for a year...The advantage of a tax abatement over a stimulus plan is that, instead of idiots in Washington spending your and my money, us idiots get to spend our own. Our spending may be foolish, but not as foolish as government spending for the simple reason of Committee Brain -- individuals aren't as stupid as a group.

On committee dynamics: Committes are ancient and ubiquitous in our civiliation. Moses goes to a business conference with God and the next thing you know, Exodus 32:1, 'the people gathered themselves together.' And someone says, 'All in favor of worshipping a golden calf...'

On politics: I'm sick of politics. We're all sick of politics. We live in a democracy, rule by the people. Fifty percent of people are below average intelligence. This explains everything about politics...Whether we think politics is a bother or whether we are full of great expectations about all the good things politics tries to do, we have to scale back the scope of politics. Otherwise no good things will be accomplished. We can't treat the American government like mom, expecting her to get us off to kindergarten in the morning, fix our meals, wash our dishes, fold the laundry, keep our house clean and our grandparents happy, do the shopping and the gardening, and still somehow make herself interesting to dad. That's why mom snapped and started drinking and got in that car wreck.

On power: We've all heard Lord Acton's observation that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Few know that this observation was made in a letter from Acton to Anglican Bishop Mandell Creighton on the subject of papal infallibility (something Acton, a devout Catholic, nevertheless didn't subscribe to). O'Rourke observes, "If power can do the likes of that [corrupt] to the Holy Father in Rome, just think what it's done to Harry Reid."

On the "conservative media:" Back in the day, Bill Buckley was the lonely voice of conservatism in the media. "...[W]ith little but his vox clamantis in deserto to guide it, public opinion went from the 1964 defeat of Barry Goldwater with 38.5% of the popular vote to the 1980 victory of Ronald Reagan with 50.7% of the popular vote. After Reagan was elected conservative media grew enormously in popularity and range. The result, as far as I could figure it, was nil."

Get the book.

Stop the Presses! Jennifer Gray Beats a Palin!

2010-12-04T23:29:00.000-08:00

Jacques Ellul wrote nearly 50 years ago that one of the characteristics of the "political illusion" is that everything becomes political...even things that aren't. That Jennifer Gray, a 50 year-old professional dancer and performer, beat an amateur in a televised dance competition should result in a shoulder shrug. If she hadn't won, something was wrong. But because she beat a Palin, MSNBC has to turn her "win" into a political victory.

Politics permeates every corner of our society and culture, and yet if there's a bigger arena of abject failure in achieving anything of lasting value other than politics, I'm not aware of it. Why does politics pollute everything in our society? Because it is the dominant religion of our society. People -- both left and right -- have placed enormous faith in politics, and expect of it things that politics cannot achieve. Even the things politics can hypothetically achieve, it fails at. Why are the extreme right and the extreme left so self-righteous in the denunciation of each other? Because leftist and rightist ideology has risen to the level of dogma. The political divide in our country represents a contemporary religious war, which explains why there is no give on either side. Anyone who deviates from the accepted dogma is a heretic and must be burned at the stake.

The politics of prayer

2010-11-12T14:55:00.000-08:00

An article posted by Christianity Today:

Pray for All Leaders — Particularly Our Guy

The Republican Party nearly won control of the Senate. It picked up seven seats, including Alaska, but was four short of a 51-seat majority. One of the reasons that the GOP didn't pick up the additional seats, said some, was the dismal performance of candidates endorsed by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) and his Senate Conservatives Fund, which was often at odds with so-called establishment Republicans on the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee.

DeMint backed some winners, including Rand Paul (Kentucky), Mark Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), and Mark Rubio (Florida). But his critics have fumed over DeMint's support for candidates who won upsets in the primaries only to lose in the general election. They blame him for the GOP losses of Dino Rossi (Washington), Sharron Angle (Nevada), Ken Buck (Colorado), Christine O'Donnell (Delaware), and John Raese (West Virginia). If DeMint had stayed out of it, goes the argument, the Republicans could have won the Senate.

Family Research Council (FRC) is putting its weight behind DeMint. FRC president Tony Perkins said, "DeMint has been unfairly blamed for the Republicans' shortcomings in the Senate. Perhaps more than any other GOP member, Sen. DeMint is responsible for giving Americans hope that what's wrong in Washington can be fixed if we simply return to our nation's founding principles and work within — not around — the Constitution."

FRC has started a campaign to gather one million people to pray for DeMint. The campaign quotes Paul's instruction to Timothy to pray for leaders and then asks people to "pledge to pray for America's elected officials at least once per week."

Pastors and politicians frequently remind Christians to pray for governmental leaders and "all those in authority" (1 Tim. 2:1-2). For example, Stuart Shepard ended this week's CitizenLink webcast, as he does every week, with a call for prayer that elected officials will "have wisdom and follow a wise course for our country." When Shepard mentions an official by name, it is often the sitting president — Republican or Democrat.

But FRC's campaign is a thinly veiled call to support DeMint. The website shows DeMint, fists clenched. It asks people to "stand with Americans across the nation as we pray for Senator Jim DeMint." Elsewhere, FRC stated that the purpose of the one million prayer project was to support DeMint because an attack on the senator is "an attack on all conservatives and people of faith."

Indeed, those who pledge to pray for "America's elected officials" give FRC their name, e-mail, and Zip Code. What is not mentioned on the website but is listed elsewhere is that while the FRC will control the list, it will be used to communicate DeMint's prayer requests to pledgers. The list will keep pledgers "updated with specific requests as he works with the new Congress [on] our family issues."

Is it right for FRC to use Scripture to urge someone to pledge to pray for all elected officials, when the goal is to put that person on a DeMint e-mail list with prayer requests for his political battles?

For FRC, DeMint is an ideal senator, someone whose policy positions almost perfectly match the organization's. Last month, FRC Action's Tom McClusky said he was "honored to have the chance to work with a pro-life, pro-national defense, pro-family, pro-fiscal responsibility senator and his staff and I am proud of everything he has done representing the great state of South Carolina and a well rounded conservative philosophy in the U.S. Senate."

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Comment: As Jesus eschewed politics during his ministry, and the apostles said virtually nothing about it (other than to pray for our leaders, with prayer probably being THE least political act one can take), who does the Family Research Council actually speak for? Not Jesus, I think. It seems more concerned with running to the support of Jim DeMint than in discerning Christ's will and what it means to truly pursue His kingdom on earth.

If the Family Research Council wants to promote conservative social issues and conservative candidates, wonderful. But it shouldn't try to pretend it is a Christian organization, when what Christ may want is way down on the FRC's priority list.

Just when we need him most

2010-11-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

Aside from the Baby Boom generation being the most self-absorbed and worthless cohort to tample the landscape of human history, there have been a few bright reasons to be glad to have been born a Boomer: watching the Apollo 11 moonlanding during our lifetime; the Beatles; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the Raiders of the 1970s. All momentuous events that have made living in the Boomer generation memorable. For me, I'm grateful to have been alive in the period of history where I could witness greatness and genius. One such, was to have lived at a time to see the work and influence of William F. Buckley, Jr.

As a adolescent, I cut my intellectual and political teeth on Buckley's work. As a high school student in the late 1960s, I rarely missed a telecast of "Firing Line" (on PBS, amazingly), and all through high school I subscribed to National Review. The death of Wm. F. Buckley in 2008 was the end of an era, IMO. But now comes Athwart History: Half a Century of Polemics, Animadversions, and Illuminations -- A William F. Buckley Jr. Omnibus, a collection of the best of Buckley's writings. Editor Roger Kimball notes in the introduction to the book Buckley's many endeavors: magazine publisher and editor, television talkshow host, columnist, the writer of spy novels, lecturer, debater, traveller, adventurer, harpsichord player. "In his spare time," writes Kimball, "he ran for mayor of New York City and, along the way, rescued American conservatism from irrelevance and crack-pottery."

Every election since 1988, conservatives have wondered, "Who will be the next Reagan?" I wonder who will be the next Bill Buckley. We're a right-center nation, or so we're told (and so the election results of last week would indicate). But while conservatism has never quite gone into eclipse since Reagan left office, it's lacked much of the intellectual punch, clarity, and soaring rhetoric provided by Buckley and his colleagues at National Review from the mid-1950s onward to the close of the 20th Century. Who is the intellectual and spiritual heir of Bill Buckley? Glenn Beck? Sean Hannity? Ann Coulter? Sarah Palin? IMHO, each has their merits, but none of them, individually or collectively, measure up to the intellectual firepower and inspiration of William F. Buckley. And conservatism suffers for the lack.

Thanks to the policies of Barack Obama, there is a lot of talk about freedom and liberty in the country today, but who is explaning what liberty is, why it should be valued, and why a large and expanding government is a threat to it, beyond using the term as a cliche or in a guaranteed applause line? "The question is," writes Roger Kimball, "whether those 'uncorroded by a cynical contempt for human freedom' will command the wit, rhetoric, and moral courage to stand athwart tomorrow whispering, confiding, explaining -- sometimes even yelling Stop! -- in order that freedom might have an opportunity to prevail."

At least within the current intellectual vacuum, there's this new "Buckley Omnibus."

Politics takes on the 10 Commandments

2010-11-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

(P.J. O'Rouke gets it. This is an excerpt of "Morality in Politics" from Don't Vote. It Just Encourages the Bastards) --

Politics violates not only the first commandment about who's God, it violates the other nine as well. Politics could hardly function without bearing false witness. Likewise, without taking the Lord's name in vain. The more so given that, in politics, the Lord who is so loosely sworn by is you and me -- mankind.

In modern government politics has taken the place of mere tyranny. The result has been more killing in the past century than in all the preceding centuries combined. Convetousness and stealing define redistributive politics, and, without redistribution, politics would have no political support. And graven image is as good way as any to describe the fiat money by which redistributive politics operates.

Politics' insistence upon involvement in every human activity, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, is more anti-Sabbatarian than golf. The Social Security system is no way to honor thy father and mother. As for adultry, there was, and there may still be, Bill Clinton.

Even to be "politically engaged and informed" may make us one of the devil's party, driving around town with a "Vote for Satan" bumper sticker. Listen carefully to that most politically engaged and informed radio network NPR and hear the evident relish with which it reports misfortune, inequity, and suffering around the world. The unspoken gleeful message is, "More occasions for more politics!" Nor are conservatives without delight in the others' misery. How we long for unemployment, anxiety, anger, and fear of bombs in boxer shorts on the next election day.

I believe in original sin, and politics may be its name. However, unlike some of my fellow Republicans, I do not believe God is involved in politics. Observe politics in America. Observe politics around the world. Observe poilitics down through history. Does it look like God is involved? When it comes to being a political activist, that would be the Other Fellow.

Wrapping the culture war in the Bible

2010-09-06T23:13:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should know who Dr. David Barton is. He's a professor of history and such at Ecclesia College, a private Christian school, and heads up an organization called "Wall Builders." He's also, apparently, a semi-regular on some of the talking head shows on cable. I have to admit I've never seen him on the tube, nor heard of him in any context. But apparently he's "somebody." Part of his claim to fame is that he has often shared a stage with Glenn Beck at various rallies around the country.

He recently published comments on his blog answering the questions and criticisms of his association with Beck, considering that Beck is a Mormon. He tells his readers that in assessing Glenn Beck, one should look at his "fruits," citing Jesus' teaching that you shall know the character of someone by their fruit. He also draws a parallel between Cornelius, who wasn't a Jew, being accepted by the Jewish apostles, with how Christians should accept Glenn Beck. He makes the case that because of Beck's good heart he should be embraced by Christians when he talks about returning God to the center of American life and values.

I wish Barton hadn't made the effort.

Reading his blog piece, I think Barton makes a strong case that belief in Christ, as the New Testament characterizes belief in Christ, makes absolutely no difference in terms of one's political ideology or patriotic convictions. Which, frankly, is fine. I don't believe Jesus came to this world in order to make us all constitutional originalists or Republicans. On the broad cultural and values front, interestingly, religion has little to do with anything. I was a conservative long before I became a Christian. We can unite with conservative Jews, Mormons, Catholics, Pentecostals, and every stripe of evangelical, on social, cultural, and political issues. But it is interesting that when it comes to these cultural and values issues in America today, Jesus really is irrelevant. That's what Barton is saying, whether he intended to say it or not.

And if Jesus -- who he is, what he accomplished in his earthly ministry, and what he is accomplishing now in regard to the building of his kingdom -- is irrelevant in the culture war, then the "God" that Glenn Beck and others like David Barton appeal to isn't the God of the Bible, the God of the New Testament, the God incarnating Jesus, but is a civic God, and the religion they're talking about getting back into the nation is a civil religion, and not Christianity, per se.

There is so much in Barton's comments that I take issue with, it's hard to know where to start. I'll take one comment he made:

Recall the incident in Acts 10 where God shattered the thinking and paradigm of the Apostles by manifesting himself to and through Cornelius. In the Apostles’ thinking, this was definitely not supposed to happen, for Cornelius was part of the wrong group. Nonetheless, God moved through Cornelius, making clear that His blessing was upon him.

The point of the story of Cornelius was that God intended the salvation accomplished by Christ to be available to all people, not just the Jews. God didn't move through Cornelius as some kind of evidence of a pluralistic cultural "big tent," but to show the apostles that God's plan of salvation was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Cornelius didn't become simply a cultural ally of the apostles...he became a brother in Christ. For Barton to use this example in a blog about Glenn Beck tells me that Barton is confusing a political agenda with the working of God. And coming from a nationally recognized evangelical, that confusion is rather scary.

And the good fruit Jesus always referred to were spiritual fruit, produced through the union of the believer with the vine, Christ. Barton is misrpresenting the "fruit of Christ" in saying that Glenn Beck produces "good fruit."

On the cultural front, we can join arms with Mormons, Catholics, Jews, even atheists, if they are for a return to constitutional government, individual responsibility, and common decency. But let's not confuse this effort with the Kingdom of God, or declare a person who doesn't ultimately put their faith in Christ as "godly" and "righteous."

I think Barton, here, is doing huge damage to the message of the gospel with his piece. And I really wish evangelical "leaders" and self-proclaimed spokespersons, would stop doing that.

It's an interesting quandry. When spokespeople/leaders say we need to recognize that this is a nation founded on faith and that we need to rebuild the foundation of that faith, I tend to agree. But at the time of the Founding, Christianity was it...There were different stripes of Christianity: Baptist, Presbryterian, Quaker, Catholic, Episcopal, but Christianity and Christian values in a broad sense were the consensus.

We don't have that consensus any longer. We have Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, even athetists and agnostics in the mix today, as well we should, considering what freedom actually means in this country. And while Christians still make up the majority in this country (I'm being generous), in that mix are pacifists, Jim Wallis-types, and the like. Most black Americans are undoubtedly Christians, but 95% of them voted for Obama. And as Barton points out, there are over a third of self-identifying evangelicals who don't think abortion or gay behavior are "sins." How can a consensus intended on rebuilding our foundation of faith be forged from this hodge-podge? I'd bet that if you gathered ten evangelicals, and each one was interviewed separately about what their understanding of the gospel is, you'd probably get about 6 different answers, and the majority would be wrong (or, more accurately, would give you a truncated partially correct answer). I'm not too encouraged by what I see of the evangelical church in America today.

So, what are we to base our efforts to rebuild society on, considering the broad diversity of views and perspectives? The only answer is to build it upon widely held broad views, which will unite people with conservative values together under a "big tent." Oddly, sadly, this big tent cultural conservatism can't be built around Christ. I don't believe that an appeal to convictions other than Christ-centered convictions is necessarily wrong, even for devout Christians. Personally, I think a scriptural case can be made for kind of a "meh" attitude toward government and society. Jesus said, with an almost perceptible shrug of his shoulders, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," as if to say that the two don't intersect. The only consistent Christian message to the politics of this nation today is likely a prophetic one: "Repent!"

Fight for conservative cultural principles, if you must. But can these principles, as a glue to the entire society and culture, come from faith in Christ? Yes, if there was still a unified Christian consensus in this country. Otherwise, no, it must come from something else. Which is why I don't think Barton or anyone else should wrap the conservative movement, or Glenn Beck, or Sarah Palin, in the Bible.

That is my sanctified cynical view.

Politics as mental illness

2010-05-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

National Derangement
The Political Illusion

May 6, 2010

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on your TV, there it was again—another mind-numbing story about politics.

You might have thought we'd catch a breath after President Obama's historic election. But no, we've been treated to daily doses of political news ever since—the "historic" election of Republican Senator Scott Brown, Tea Party events, and weekly political scandals. Now, we're looking ahead to November and the next "most historic election ever"—the one that will finally save America.

Are we all losing our minds, spending half our lives watching politics on the tube? I'm reminded of the words of Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher. Almost 100 years before the invention of television, Kierkegaard predicted what would happen if such a thing were invented. "Suppose," Kierkegaard wrote, "someone invented...a convenient little talking tube which could be heard over the whole land. I wonder if the police would not forbid it, fearing that the whole country would become mentally deranged."

He was right: We are becoming deranged. We are succumbing to what French philosopher Jacques Ellul prophesied in the 1960s—the politicization of all aspects of life. Ellul foresaw the Information Age and the media's need for a steady flow of information to feed the populace. Media therefore would gravitate to covering centers of power. Politicians would be willing accomplices, because they'd gain fame and clout.

We've succumbed to what Ellul predicted—the idea that every problem has a political solution. This, he warned, leads to increasing dependence on the state and decreasing citizen control of government.

The result: The structure of government becomes so unwieldy that it can hardly function. For example, we've spent billions fighting terrorism—but we couldn't stop "the underwear bomber" from boarding a U.S.-bound plane, even though his name was on a terrorist watch list.
Ellul also foresaw that when government becomes all-intrusive, the intermediate structures that keep societies vibrant—families, churches, and voluntary associations—collapse and tyranny follows.

What's the answer? First, we better recognize that politics is not the be-all and end-all. Politics is merely the expression of culture. Clean up culture—that's our job—and politics will follow.
This happened when God's people were awakened in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. England then was in worse straits than we are today, with slavery, child labor, and rampant political corruption. But along came William Wilberforce, the Oxford movement, and the Salvation Army. What followed was a great, century-long revival of Christian faith. England was not only saved in the Wesley revivals, it was stronger than ever.

So we as 21st-century Christians must do the same thing. And there is no time to lose. If, as I believe, the political illusion has America by the throat, there are only two likely outcomes—revolution, which is what the Tea Party people suggest (albeit peacefully), or tyranny.
God has acted again and again through His people to change history's course. But for that to happen, the Church had better sober up, summon its spiritual resources, expose the political illusion, and begin to defend and live the Christian faith in our culture.

Obama, the god that failed

2010-01-27T09:38:00.000-08:00

The Washington Times piles on.

Finally, that nonsense is over with

2010-01-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

J.R. Dunn, in The American Thinker, provides an interesting insight on Scott Brown's Senate victory in Massachusetts last week:

Brown didn't just overcome an unworthy, machine-produced opponent, or even provide the crucial vote to prevent the further socialization of the United States. He destroyed a legend -- the legend of Obama the Omnipotent.

The Obama of 2008 was a figure who came out of nowhere trailing clouds of glory. His followers hailed him as a new phenomenon, of a type unseen in America since JFK and perhaps not ever. He was hailed as superhuman, with more than a touch of the divine. Some openly called him a messiah. One of his media supporters stated for the record that Obama was a godlike entity.

Perhaps it seemed like that to some after his November victory. The stunned opposition among Republicans and conservatives were certainly tempted to view it that way. How else to explain the near-mad adulation, the absolute certainty, the pseudo-religious frenzy?...

As of this week, that is ended. Obama as Übermensch is a thing of the past. In a short time, commentators from all parts of the spectrum will be scratching their heads and wondering what it was all about.

While Obama was tarred from his support of losers in the Virginia and New Jersey contests, Massachusetts left him no choice. Too much was at stake. His signature effort, the takeover of the health-care system, depended on that single vote. So he was flushed out of the Oval Office at emergency speed to throw a lifeline to a swamped candidate. The tired, near-shabby figure who appeared in Boston last Sunday to mouth a pro forma endorsement that he obviously did not believe was not the Obama of last year. Not a godling, not a New Man, not a higher step in evolution, but a sad and overwhelmed individual who is having bad time of it and sees worse coming.

While Barack Obama was viewed by many of his supporters, particularly those in the formally-neutral news media, as some kind of messiah, an apostle of hope and change, a god-like figure worshipped within the secular religion of politics, it might be contended that he never viewed himself that way. But he certainly didn't discourage such worship.

So, now, it appears that Obama the messiah is going the way of all false gods: he's crashed back to earth.

The security of the nation depends upon the success of the president in protecting the nation. Our struggling economy and need for job growth dictates sober and realistic policies from the Administration. We should hope that President Obama experiences enough success to positively impact both our security and economic well-being. But good riddance to the myth of Obama the God-Like Figure.

Not of this world

2009-12-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

What is divine in Man is elusive and impalpable, and he is easily tempted to embody it in a concrete form -- a church, a country, a social system, a leader -- so that he may realize it with less effort and serve it with more profit. Yet, as even Lincoln proved, the attempt to externalize the kingdom of heaven in a temporal shape must end in disaster. It cannot be created by charters and constitutions nor established by arms. Those who set out for it alone will reach it together, and those who seek it in company will perish by themselves. -- Hugh Kingsmill (as quoted in Conversion: The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim by Malcolm Muggeridge)

Church and State

2009-10-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. The Strength to Love, 1963

The church, meaning Christians, should never be a tool of, nor be held captive by, either the state or any political ideology. Too many think the debate among Christians is whether they should side with conservatives in preserving traditional values, or liberals and show compassion to those in need. This is a false debate. The church must maintain a prophetic stance toward both. Christ's kingdom is not of this world. We shouldn't stand aloof, but critique politics, as politics is often a false religion, promoting the causes of false messiahs.

Politics by any other name

2009-10-10T15:14:00.001-07:00

One characteristic of the nature of contemporary politics in America is provided by John Derbyshire in the title of one of the chapters of his book, We Are Doomed - Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism:

Politics: Show Business for Ugly People.

Who can argue with it?

Here we go again

2009-09-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Politics Daily had an article about Mitt Romney's appearance at the Family Research Council's "Values Voters Summit" in Washington, DC, two weeks ago, and referenced his speech as the start of his presidential primary campaign for 2012 (as if he ever actually stopped campaigning after 2008).

The article highlights the kind of push-back Romney is getting from "values voters," mainly conservative Christian political activists. Author and former talk radio host Gregg Jackson commented, "Despite Romney's unbiblical and far left-wing record as governor on the issues FRC claims to care the most about, FRC President Tony Perkins continues to refer to Romney as a 'friend of the pro-family movement.' "

Ouch.

Here's my take (and I really was looking forward to not having to give my take prior to the 2010 elections): If "values voters" were spiritually mature and spiritually discerning, rather than act like liberals and seek for a political "messiah," they'd get on their knees, repent of their worldly shallowness, and implore God to pour out His Spirit on them, on the American church, and on this country. And they wouldn't get up until God had answered their prayer.

The Family Research Council has a right to promote its position on issues, and conservative Christians (as well as liberal ones) have a right, and I dare say, the responsibility to vote according to their convictions. But what most conservative Christian political activists ignore, or are blind to, is that in an increasingly secular society, politics has become the principal religion of most people, with their political ideology becoming tantamount to dogma. The placing of our hopes for a revival in society upon who is elected president, or who controls Congress, is, quite frankly, rank idolatry. No wonder God isn't blessing most of these efforts.

Cult Watch: Obama mediates

2009-07-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

Cult Watch: Obama’s “Chat” About Cambridge Arrest
7/30/09

(Posted to Facebook by the Cato Institute this morning.)

So President Obama is going to host Professor Gates and Officer Crowley today at the White House. Much has already been said about thecontroversial arrest for “disorderly conduct.”

IMHO,itseems like a false arrest.I wasn’t there, but it is not a crimefor someone to beobnoxious to the police (and thatis basically the cop’s version of the incident). For additional background, I recommend the columns by Eugene Robinson, Harvey Silverglate, and Radley Balko.

But leave the arrest itself aside. Even more disturbing is Obama’s leap into this matter. It is yet another indication of the Cult of the Presidency where the President sees a role for himself in just about any aspect of life. The news media covers the event as if it is pretty much ordinary business. What’s next? Will Mr. Obama try to help the Gosselins out by having Jon and Kate over for tea? Obama could bring in the best counselors in the world while Michelle takes the kids on a helicopter ride to Camp David for the afternoon.

The "Messiah" thing is getting old

2009-07-23T12:05:00.001-07:00

There he goes again

2009-07-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

Politicalwire.com reports that Ralph Reed, late of the Christian Coalition, and various failed efforts to gain elective office, is planning to launch a new "hipper" version of the Christian Coalition, called "Faith and Freedom Coalition."

Sigh.

Poor Ralph.

I recently came to the realization that the evangelicalism I came to Christ via in the 1970s really doesn't exist any more. Evangelical Christianity has changed. The things that mattered to my generation aren't major concerns among the up-and-coming evanglical generation, and that includes both strict fidelity to the authority and reliability of scripture, and creating a conservative "counterculture." My generation of American evangelicals wasted its moment in history pursuing a vision of "seeker-friendly" mega-churchianity, and exerting influence upon the surrounding society through political means. The upcoming generation of evangelicals is not so dogmatic, not nearly as conservative, and increasingly views politics as a bogus pursuit. All-in-all, not entirely negative things.

But the point is this: Ralph Read appeals to a generation of evangelicals that is quietly passing from the scene. His style of "conservatism" is, as with most of conservatism at the present time, firmly rooted in the 1980s. He may have a modicum of success, mainly in isolated islands throughout the midwest and south, but time has passed him by.

The Cult of the Presidency

2009-06-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

If we are to de-deify government in our country, the best place to start is to knock the Presidency down a few pegs...nothing serious, just down to what it was constitutionally intended to be.

About the book:

The Bush years have given rise to fears of a resurgent Imperial Presidency. Those fears are justified, but the problem cannot be solved simply by bringing a new administration to power. In his provocative new book, The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy argues that the fault lies not in our leaders but in ourselves. When our scholars lionize presidents who break free from constitutional restraints, when our columnists and talking heads repeatedly call upon the “commander in chief ” to dream great dreams and seek the power to achieve them—when voters look to the president for salvation from all problems great and small—should we really be surprised that the presidency has burst its constitutional bonds and grown powerful enough to threaten American liberty?

The Cult of the Presidency takes a step back from the ongoing red team/blue team combat and shows that, at bottom, conservatives and liberals agree on the boundless nature of presidential responsibility. For both camps, it is the president’s job to grow the economy, teach our children well, provide seamless protection from terrorist threats, and rescue Americans from spiritual malaise. Very few Americans seem to think it odd, says Healy, “when presidential candidates talk as if they’re running for a job that’s a combination of guardian angel, shaman, and supreme warlord of the earth.”

Healy takes aim at that unconfined conception of presidential responsibility, identifying it as the source of much of our political woe and some of the gravest threats to our liberties. If the public expects the president to heal everything that ails us, the president is going to demand—or seize—the power necessary to handle that responsibility.

Interweaving historical scholarship, legal analysis, and trenchant cultural commentary, The Cult of the Presidency traces America’s decades-long drift from the Framers’ vision for the presidency: a constitutionally constrained chief magistrate charged with faithful execution of the laws. Restoring that vision will require a Congress and a Court willing to check executive power, but Healy emphasizes that there is no simple legislative or judicial “fix” to the problems of the presidency. Unless Americans change what we ask of the office—no longer demanding what we should not want and cannot have—we’ll get what, in a sense, we deserve.

Christians and power

2009-06-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

"...This permanent orientation of Jesus, this express choice not to use power, places us Christians in a very delicate situation. For we ought to make the same choice, but we are set in a society whose only orientation and objective criterion of truth is power...Thus we Christians today are placed in the most difficult of all situations. We have to repudiate both the spirit of the age and the means that it employs. If we do not, if we yield even a fraction of these forces, we will betray Jesus Christ..." -- Jacques Ellul, What I Believe.

Demoted

2009-06-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Looks like Pres. Obama has been demoted from Messiah to Superhero.

Call for renewed social conservative emphasis

2009-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Fred Barnes wrote a piece in the Weekly Standard the end of May on the fledgling effort of Robert George, a professor of political science at Princeton, to form an organization to renew and invigorate conservatism in general, and the conservative foundation of the Republican Party.

Working formally through a new organization entitled The American Principles Project, Barnes writes that, "George wants to bring intellectual vigor to the Republican party and the conservative movement, especially on social issues like pornography and marriage. 'We need to connect our intellectuals with our activists,' he says."

Part of the effort will be to bring social research showing evidence that conservative principles are the correct ones on a varietyof social issues, from divorce, to the nature of marriage, to personal responsibility, and the life.

All well and good. If professor George wants to interject scholarly findings into a public debate which show the supremacy of conservative values, great. But if he proposes that social conservatism be the cornerstone of a renewed political conservatism, I think he's living in the 1980s.

If conservatism is to make a rebound in both the GOP and in national politics, it needs to emphasize liberty -- economic liberty, liberty of thought, liberty of association -- and take on the main threat to liberty, which is expanded government.

The problem with making social conservatism the cornerstone of a revived conservatism is that the culture has changed since 1980. Professor George doesn't seem to understand that the culture is now permeated with post-modernist attitudes, which makes absolute truth claims about values virtually irrelevant in the political arena. Whereas social conservatism was still the consensus when Ronald Reagan was elected, it's now prominent only in isolated islands. Granted, some of those islands are large, taking up whole regions of the country, but the consensus on these issues hasshrunk, and shrunk quickly, particularly in places like California.

I'm glad for the recent Calif. Supreme Court decision upholding Prop 8 on the civil definition of marriage, but it's a temporary victory. Gay marriage activists will continue to come back to the ballot box, and eventually they will win. This is the problem with trying to hold the line on social issuesby putting all our eggs into a political basket -- the politics have shifted.

What social conservatives need to understand is that in our increasingly secularized society, the state has become a false god, politics (both left and right) have become a false religion, and the media is a false prophet. The problems we face in our culture are not political, but spiritual -- they go to the core of who people are, and are reflected out into the culture.

Conservative Christians, by fighting battles in the political arena, have neglected God's resources. What's needed isn't arenewed political effort on these issues, but general revival. When I get a sense that Christians are spending more time in prayer discerning God's will than they are listening to talk radio and on the political battlefields, then I'll have reason for hope.

The issues can be debated, that's fine. But our politics and government are going to reflect the culture. Politics and government policies are not going to impact the culture. I fear that Prof. George may be 30 years behind the curve if that's his intent.

Government that even owns our devotions

2009-06-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

There's a post today over at my favorite discussion site about the not-so-creeping take over of major portions of our economy by the government:

Why aren't our conservative "leaders" pointing out that a person can now get up in the morning and go to work for a government owned industry, he may have to buy his car from the government, the car loan, his house loan, all his loans may be from a government owned bank, that means he may have to buy his house from the government. If Obama has his way, when the worker gets sick his doctor will be the government.

In response, one of my online friends posted, "In the Soviet Union, the children were taught to look to Mother Russia - not God - for all they needed, and to thank Mother Russia - not God - for all they had. Nope, no parallels there."

Which got me to thinking: The reason statist regimes tend to be atheistic, and dictatorial in their policies, is that they will not tolerate any competition to the devotion and worship of the people. So, we're on that path, with "The Messiah" now running things from the Oval Office.

Who's getting the praise?

2009-02-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

From a story on The Oval:

'Thank you, Lord Jesus!' Excited young man lands job -- for a day -- after asking Obama a question

Ok, was he thanking Jesus for Obama's answer, or thanking Obama because he's the messiah?

Another comment, in an interview with fellow-worshipper Keith Olberman, from the young man provides further insight:

Olbermann: "Were you satisfied with the president's actual answer to your question about improving your benefits?"

Osegueda: "Yes, I was. I was truly blessed. The answer that Mr. President Obama gave me was such a motivation that made me feel as if success is around the corner. Just keep trying hard and don't stop for anything."

"Truly blessed." The channel of that blessing is Obama, apparently. And I suppose seeing-positive-results-from-hard-work only became possible on January 20, 2009.

The meaning of Sarah Palin

2009-02-03T10:07:00.000-08:00

There's a good and thoughtful article in the current issue of Commentary Magazine discussing Sarah Palin's role on the GOP ticket last year, and discussing the significance of her candidacy. (The link doesn't provide a full copy of the online article; that's only available by subscription.)

On what continues to be the opposition of the left and the media to Sarah Palin:

…her views on matters of cultural and social controversy very quickly became the chief focus of media attention, liberal criticism, and pundit analysis. Palin was assigned every view and position the Left considered unenlightened, and the response to her brought into the light all manner of implicit liberal assumptions about cultural conservatives. We were told that Palin was opposed to contraception, advocated teaching creationism in schools, and was inclined to ban books she disagreed with. She was described as a religious zealot, an anti-abortion extremist, a blind champion of abstinence-only sex education. She was said to have sought to make rape victims pay for their own medical exams, to have Alaska secede from the Union, and to get Pat Buchanan elected President. She was reported to believe that the Iraq war was mandated by God, that the end-times prophesied in the Book of Revelation were nearing and only Alaska would survive, and that global warming was purely a myth. None of this was true…

Palin became the embodiment of every dark fantasy the Left had ever held about the views of evangelical Christians and women who do not associate themselves with contemporary feminism, and all concern for clarity and truthfulness was left at the door…

The reaction to Palin revealed a deep and intense cultural paranoia on the Left: an inclination to see retrograde reaction around every corner, and to respond to it with vile anger. A confident, happy, and politically effective woman who was also a social conservative was evidently too much to bear. The response of liberal feminists was in this respect particularly telling, and especially unpleasant…

But in regard to the bottom-line:

In the end, Palin had a modest impact on the race. About 60 percent of those interviewed in the exit polls said McCain’s choice of Palin had been a factor in their vote. Of these, 56 percent voted for McCain while only 43 percent voted for Obama. In other words, she appears to have helped McCain more than she hurt him, but not by much, which is as it should be; we were voting for a President, after all. In the face of unprecedented attack, Palin succeeded where almost no vice-presidential candidate ever has before in winning sustained support for the ticket.

This suggests Palin’s potent combination of cultural populism and social conservatism might provide the roadmap a Republican politician will need in the future to make headway against the Democratic tide. But that roadmap will only take that Republican politician so far. The rest of the journey requires the articulation of a broader vision for American families, American prosperity and freedom, and American security; a vision of conservatism, not only a nimbus of populism.

There is every reason to believe Palin will try to accomplish just this in a future national election. It may be, however, that other ambitious Republicans will be better suited to the task of perfecting the formula for electoral success she introduced last fall.Either way, the Palin moment shed a powerful light on the power, the potential, and the ultimate inadequacy of a conservatism grounded solely in cultural populism.

It also exposed the vulnerability of the Left to a challenge to its most cherished claims—as the sole representative of the interests of the working class and the only legitimate path to political power for an ambitious woman.And, perhaps even more telling, it revealed the unfortunate and unattractive propensity of the American cultural elite to treat those who are not deemed part of the elect with condescension and contumely.

For some, everything isn't political

2009-01-23T16:15:00.001-08:00

I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons. -- Will Rogers

Woody, RIP

2009-01-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Our lives are a bit poorer today, what with the passing last night of our family dog, Woody, a 12 year old Golden Retriever.

We'd never considered ourselves dog-people, having had some nine cats during the course of our marriage. But Woody was the Perfect Dog. Never was there a more gentle animal in God's creation. His main joys in life were eating, chasing his Frisbee at the park, and just being with us (not necessarily in that order). He was loved by small children, and he loved them back.

A devoted companion. Always smiling. He only showed impatience when we didn't keep the biscuits coming in the evening. Unconditional love is suppose to be a Christian virtue. But while we humans, who claim to know God, often fail to display that virtue, the gentle spirit of a Golden Retriever put us all to shame in showing how easily love can come, unconditionally.

Woody was a big dog, largest of his litter. We've read that big dogs aren't suppose to live long lives. We believe Woody lived beyond his expected lifespan. He never experienced the doggy joys of retrieving ducks in early morning hunts, but as he was afraid of guns, and wasn't a "morning person," preferring to sleep-in, that's a joy he undoubtedly didn't miss. His joys were simple. And what joys he received from being a part of our family, he returned a hundred-fold.

I don't know the eternal fate of dogs' souls, but it seems right to say, "Godspeed, Woody." You are greatly missed.

Advent Watch, 2

2009-01-10T19:52:00.001-08:00

The following was written by Canadian columnist David Warren a week before the 2008 presidential election. What he describes is an element of "the political illusion" -- the appeal of politics is in reality a religious appeal. Nothing since the election has diminished the accuracy of his assessment:

...Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader -- and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which the U.S. itself, like the rest of the western world, has lost its purchase on the Christian religion. Powerful religious impulses have been spilt, secularized.

In this climate, people tend to be maniacally opposed to the sin to which they are not tempted: to giving Christ control over the things that are Caesar's. But they are blind to the sin to which they are hugely tempted: giving Caesar control over the things that are Christ's.

"Faith, hope, and charity" are Christ's things. They apply, properly, outside time -- to a "futurity" that is not of this world. They must not be applied to any earthly utopia. A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very dangerous illusions. Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up.

Advent Watch

2009-01-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Who needs the Second Coming of Christ when we've got Barack Obama's inauguration to look forward to?

At least that's the attitude of fundamentalist liberals who see the incoming Obama Presidency as nothing short of a millenial event of biblical proportions.

This is from a reader of The Corner on National Review Online, posted by Jay Nordlinger, which illustrates the point:

From a reader:
A couple weekends back, I was listening to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. And Renée Fleming [the great soprano] sang “In the Bleak Midwinter.” But the lyrics to this beloved and touching carol were changed, in order to celebrate Barack Obama. The original carol is about Christ. But, in this version, Obama was the central figure. What is happening to us?

The new lyrics, if you’re interested, are

In the bleak midwinter
At the Christmas feast
A family leaves Chicago
And travels to the East
For a public mansion
In Washington, D.C.,
In a time of trouble
And festivity.

All across the nation,
Sea to shining sea,
People watch the passage
Of that family.
And our loving wishes
Go out to them there.
All the nation breathes
A silent, hopeful prayer.

Politics as revival meeting

2009-01-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

A premise accepted here as true is that as western societies become more secular, politics (both left and right) have been adopted as the predominant religion of these societies. It follows that politicians are something of a priesthood interceding for the people, the state as the all-seeing/all-powerful god of the secular society, and the particular political ideologies as religious dogma. Jeff Medcalf has posted a comment on Eternity Road which makes the same observation:

Evangelism, Proselytizing, Tribal Markers and the Faith of the Left
By Jeff Medcalf

Instapundit points to a post by Jay Nordlinger at NRO, about how Leftist political tirades and snide asides have penetrated much of the art world and other public venues. It’s something I’ve noticed as well, and I heartily applaud Mr. Reynolds’ suggestion: when it happens, boo loudly and lustily.

But what really caught me about the collection of anecdotes Jay Nordlinger listed is how Lefty politics has become something very like Revival meetings, and what that says about the position of religious belief in our society. The Left is generally appalled at religious belief of any kind, at least, any sincere religious belief. This should not be surprising. The core of religious belief is the perception that one is a part of a much greater whole, vastly beyond our immediate comprehension, and that being part of that greater whole does more than give our lives meaning: it infuses our lives with a set of duties and prohibitions. The core of the Left’s self-identification (and I do not mean the Left to be synonymous with “Democrats") is the rejection of any duties and prohibitions imposed from the outside, even if that “imposition” is only by convention, and is not enforced. The Left’s key value is “if it feels good, do it.”

This is a profoundly selfish attitude, but it is also a profoundly religious attitude: it comes with a set of assumptions about how the world works that includes the idea that our lives are indeed connected to a greater whole, but that greater whole is humanity and the world, and it can be understood — and controlled — by the elect wise enough to do so: themselves. This approach leads to the politicization of all things: politics is neither more nor less than the means of interaction among humans with differing goals, and thus the means to controlling human interactions is necessarily political. But the Left is not merely religious in the essence of its creed, it is religious in form. The Left is evangelical (it spreads its word with zeal to all who will hear, often even when they are unwilling), proselytizes (seeks growth through conversion) and depends like almost all religions on “marker beliefs” that are so self-evidently wrong that they serve not as a true article of belief, but as evidence of membership and that you won’t rock the social boat.1 In fact, to someone who was raised in an evangelical and profoundly conservative community, and whose religious journey began with a rejection of all of the tenets of evangelical Protestantism, the Left’s public ceremonial reminds me of nothing so much as evangelical Protestantism in form.

And given that their political journey begins with a rejection of all of the tenets of evangelical Protestantism, I’m fairly sure that comment will tick them off.

1 These marker beliefs appear in almost every religion. Christianity’s most prominent marker belief is that three equals one. “Fluffy bunny” Wiccans — environmentalist social non-conformists looking for a religion that just happens to be identical to their political and personal preferences — have corrupted Wicca in many ways, most notably though is their marker belief that nature is benign.

It's a marshmellow world

2008-12-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

My favorite columnist, Mark Steyn, has recorded a festive seasonal song -- a duet with British actress Jessica Martin -- and it's a hit!

Check out the song, and download it via Amazon.com.

The song is a peppy holiday offering, and will put a bounce in the step of even Ebenezer Scrooge, but the bad part is that the song kept swimming through my head as I tried to get to sleep last night. I'd rather have visions of sugarplumbs.

The recording proves, again, that conservatives have the most fun. But Mark, don't quit your day job.

Government knows best

2008-12-13T14:21:00.000-08:00

There are disturbing indications that rather than simply protecting individual choices on moral issues, incoming President Obama intends to nationalize moral issues, ending debates such as abortion not by winning the argument in the hearts and minds of Americans, but by shutting down the debate through adoption of a national policy which supercedes state and local governments and slams the door on the ability of people of different convictions from impacting public policy.

One aspect of "the political illusion" is that all issues are political. Nationalizing the abortion issue brings a "final solution" to the contentious cultural issue.

December 13, 2008
Obama's Abortion Socialism
By Paul Kengor

Conservatives rightly fear that President Obama will produce the Democrat Party's third great expansion of the welfare state, extending Leviathan beyond FDR's and LBJ's most fertile imaginations. Yet, Barack Obama constitutes an altogether different danger: expansion of federal power into cultural areas -- with an economic justification -- where previous Democratic presidents would have never considered going.

Barack Obama is seeking to nationalize certain cultural areas as an entirely new means of redistribution to the masses. Historically, the left has endeavored to nationalize specific, say, industries. Obama, however, envisions the nationalization of something wholly unique -- namely, abortion policy.

As any college student ought to learn in PoliSci 101, communism and socialism view the world through the prism of economics. The communist and socialist thrust nearly every conceivable idea in front of an economic lens, even those that don't belong there. Everything becomes an income or class issue.

Obama sees "abortion rights" in several ways, but, principally, he perceives abortion as a matter of economic fairness. For Barack Obama, abortion is not merely a Constitutional right; it is a matter of social justice. He believes it is patently unfair that some women struggle to afford an abortion, or cannot purchase the procedure at all. Consequently, the state -- meaning a single federal state -- should seize that right and ensure its equitable distribution to every (female) citizen. This is spreading the wealth -- on the skin of America's unborn.

What you have here, remarkably, is a kind of abortion socialism, utterly unprecedented in the history of America.

We can see Obama's abortion socialism in two ways: (1) his formal speeches and remarks on the campaign trail; and (2) his policy positions.

An off-the-cuff remark was Obama's infamous comment in Western Pennsylvania last spring, where he dreaded his unwed daughters getting pregnant and being "punished with a baby." Obama's fear was based on affordability: his daughters would be saddled with the financial burden of an unplanned pregnancy.

But a deeper, more bracing statement was his July 17, 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood, where Obama made another revealing assertion: he described Planned Parenthood as a "safety-net provider."

"Safety net?" Abortion constitutes a "safety net?" According to Barack Obama, yes.

We have heard that phrase many times since the advent of the New Deal and the Great Society, as liberals have slid more and more "services" under an ever-widening government umbrella. But liberals, to my knowledge, haven't strayed into shoving abortion services, and Planned Parenthood itself, under that umbrella.

The term "safety net" is typically applied to conventional financial security -- government programs to lend a hand to a citizen who needs a back-up to catch him when he's falling. This might apply to welfare or unemployment benefits or Social Security with the government the safety-net provider. Now, in this new Obama definition, a safety net includes Planned Parenthood and its abortion services.

That's a quantum leap beyond the New Deal.

It is also a testimony to the dark pessimism behind Obama's sunny rhetoric about "change," as well as the dark pessimism of the modern liberal-progressive worldview. The undesired child is seen as a burden. For the mother's alleged financial well-being, she now, apparently, needs the government benefit of an abortion "safety net" to exterminate that child in the womb. That safety net includes the sick, secular left's utopian dream: federal funding -- your tax dollars -- of unrestricted abortion.

Barack Obama is ready to take this nation where it has never gone before.

And yet, Obama sees this new world as the very essence of America. He told Planned Parenthood that America was "founded on the principle of equality and freedom," and that it's their duty "to extend that equality to the many." This includes economic equality in the form of a "universal healthcare system," of which, he told Planned Parenthood, it would be "part of that system." He vowed to Planned Parenthood that his universal-healthcare vision would be fully achieved in his first term.

Such a healthcare system, Obama told Planned Parenthood, would spare a teenage girl "a lifetime of struggle." He wistfully imagined an America where he could contently "tuck in every night" his two little girls, assured they had been sanctified with the right of "choice" -- the choice to abort Obama's grandchildren.

Obama said this would be a "more fair and more just America" that would allow him and Planned Parenthood, together, "to transform this nation."

This brings me to the second aspect of Obama's abortion socialism -- the federal fiat to make this possible:

In that same Planned Parenthood speech, Obama vowed the "first thing" he would do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which he co-sponsored when introduced in Congress in April 2007 by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). This stunning legislation would create a new "fundamental right," a single federal right to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

FOCA would wipe off the books all the reasonable restrictions on abortion (parental-consent laws, informed-consent laws) agreed to by both Democrats and Republicans in state legislatures over the past 35 years. Those restrictions would be superseded by the federal government. No governmental body, at any level, could "discriminate" against women who exercise this "fundamental right."

This sounds so shocking that readers may think I'm exaggerating, perhaps hoodwinked by hyperbole and fear-mongering by pro-life groups. Not at all. To quote NARAL Pro-Choice America, FOCA would "codify Roe v. Wade into law and guarantee a woman's right to choose in all 50 states." Likewise, the National Organization for Women excitedly proclaims that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies."

In addition, Obama will repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayers from paying for abortions. This amendment, plus legislation protecting doctors and nurses from forcibly participating in abortions -- which, it is feared, could be overturned by FOCA -- derive from a wonderful American tradition of conscientious objection, of the government not coercing citizens to kill against their will or faith. It is this FOCA threat that is terrifying America's Catholic bishops.

The right to an abortion is sacrosanct to Barack Obama. He opposed Born Alive Infants Protection legislation in Illinois because he (mistakenly) feared that such legislation would undermine the inviolability of Roe v. Wade. As he said, it wasn't that he wanted those abortion-surviving babies left to die, even though that was the effect of what he did, but that he saw a graver threat to Roe v. Wade.

So, the incoming president's goal is to ensure that no woman, for any reason, be unable to get an abortion. He will enlist all citizens in the effort to ensure this is so. For the first time in American history, abortion would become an entitlement. Wealth would be spread in order to spread abortion benefits. Karl Marx's mid-19th century maxim, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," would find incarnation as America's 21st century abortion policy.

This is where liberalism has arrived: a concerted, government forced and financed massive denial of life to unborn Americans. And imagine that Obama voters on November 4 included libertarians and millions of professing Christians. Talk about being duped. No wonder the Catholics bishops are beside themselves.

In the end, it is ignorance that will kill us -- in this case, literally. We know that the public knows nothing about socialism, a direct result of the failures of the liberal media and education. Add to that the ignorance of Obama's radicalism on abortion, and what do you get? A toxic brew poised to poison America's soul.

Paul Kengor is author of The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (HarperPerennial, 2007) and professor of political science at Grove City College. His latest book is The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).

A modest proposal for reforming American politics

2008-12-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

Posted on National Review Online --

Another Modest Proposal
Forget Detroit. It's long past time we restructured America.
By David Kahane

Now that MSNBC’s fondest wish has come true, and the U.S. economy really is collapsing thanks to *&%#BUSH#!@%, all this talk about restructuring, and lean and mean, and less is more, etc., has got me to thinking . . .

I mean, out here in Hollywoodland, people are actually getting canned. Not just the studio suits who, like their counterparts in Major League Baseball, are hired to be fired and then spin through the revolving door and land elsewhere. I’m talking about big-name producers like Scott Aversano and Kathleen Kennedy being let go from their housekeeping deals at Paramount and Universal, along with the Industry grunts like junior execs, baby agents, and the development execs at hapless independent production companies that haven’t actually made a movie in years. Things could even get so bad that we’d have to stop spending $230 million on a movie that consists entirely of chase scenes, like Quantum of Solace. As Mrs. Lovett sings to Sweeney Todd: Times is hard.

Not, however, for our political class. My guy, Barry Hussein Junior II, managed to scarf up nearly a billion dollars in order to run against Grandpa Munster for an election that was, in retrospect, never really in doubt, and is getting ready to party hearty in Washington on January 20. And then there was the one-third of the Senate who had to fundraise, not to mention every single freakin’ one of the honorable Representatives who — for some obscure reason hidden in the penumbras of the Constitution — now spend their entire two-year stints in Washington running for re-election. There’s gotta be a better way.

And there is: Downsize America!

Let’s start with this foolish election business: thanks to gerrymandering, House districts are almost all “safe” for whichever gangster organization — I mean, “political party,” to use the Chicago term — controls them, so why bother with campaigns? Just have a lottery every two years in which a random 5 percent or so of the incumbents arbitrarily lose their seats and are replaced by the other guy. Who would be able to tell the difference? Campaign cost: $0.00.

As far as the Senate is concerned, the solution is even more elegant: repeal the 17th Amendment and have the Senators appointed by the state legislatures, the way the Founding Fathers envisioned until some crackpot “progressives” came along and gave us the Four Worst Amendments of All Time, and right in a row, too: 16 (the income tax), 17 (elected senators), 18 (prohibition) and — sorry, ladies — 19 (women’s suffrage). One of them, you’ll notice, has already been repealed, so we only have three to go! Campaign cost: $0.00.

But why stop there? Is there really any compelling reason to have 50 states? Talk about massive redundancies — governors, legislatures, hookers. . . Let’s get rid of a few:

New England: It’s patently ridiculous to have a dipstick state like Maine, which used to be part of Massachusetts anyway. Why not reunite them, merge Rhode Island with Connecticut and combine Vermont and New Hampshire? (You know you want to.) Presto: three fewer states, governors, legislatures, bureaucracies and sets of elected officials. Since there are basically no Republicans left in New England, we could go even further and combine ‘em all.

Mid-Atlantic: Savings abound when we merge three of the worst states in the Union — New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — into one vast, ugly, smelly, sprawling toxic-waste dump. Since none of these commonwealths provide any meaningful services other than the lifetime employment of corrupt politicians and shiftless government workers, or have any real identities beyond their foul weather and their terrible roads, no one would miss them, and the IQ-challenged residents who haven’t moved elsewhere are too dumb to notice. We also merge that ridiculous place, Delaware, with Maryland — which it’s obviously a part of, geographically. Plus New York City becomes its own city-state, like Berlin. It’s a win-win situation!! (I still haven’t figured out what to do with Long Island.)

The South: Who needs it? This redneck backwater rarely votes for us, anyway, so downsize away: Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi — who can tell them apart? — become one, as do Virginia and West Virginia (that slavery beef is so yesterday), and Kentucky and Tennessee; besides, the reunification of your Carolinas is long overdue. We keep Louisiana and Arkansas as theme parks of fine food and hillbilly culture, respectively.

The Midwest: Gee, from all the fuss over BO II’s former buddy, “Big Rod” Blagojevich, you’d think Illinois and the other flat hick states were one vast criminal enterprise run out of Chicago by the Combine, the Daley Machine, and the Jake Lingle Society. So let’s just draw a discreet veil of obscurity over the place and revisit this in, oh, say, four years. Shhhh . . . the media is sleeping.

Texas: Merge it with Oklahoma and give them both back to Mexico. Bonus side effect: Bush automatically becomes an illegal alien. Problem solved!

The Big Square Ones: Just look at a map, for crying out loud. Then toss in Wyoming. Can you spell o-n-e-s-t-a-t-e?

The Dakotas: Two of them? You cannot be serious! Nobody lives there, so one Dakota should be plenty, and it won’t matter to the cows.

The Pacific Northwest: Oregon, Washington; Washington, Oregon — you choose.

California: Paradise. Wouldn’t change a thing.

Ah, but Dave, I hear you say: this is all great, we save a fortune by getting rid of half the Congresscritters and their staffs, plus the Electoral College will be so small it could meet in a broom closet, but how does it help with the staggering cost of a Presidential election?

Here comes the best part: what presidential elections?

For half a century, the same few families have stuck their mugs in our faces every four years. It started with the sainted Jack Kennedy, who begat Bobby who begat Ted who begat RFK Jr., who begat Patrick, etc., and even with the natural culling of the herd that takes place from time to time on ski slopes and from drug overdoses, there will always be plenty of Kennedys. There’s even talk that Sweet Caroline will take the Wicked Witch of the East’s senate seat, assuming Hillary gets around the plain language of the Emoluments Clause and the media looks the other way as she slouches toward Foggy Bottom.

But we’ve also had the Doles, the Clintons, the Bushes, the Romneys, the Albert Arnold Gores, Sr., Jr., and III, and now, with Beau looming on the Delaware horizon, the Bidens; the Doles are thankfully gone, but there’s no end in sight to the other clans and while we’re all undoubtedly looking forward to the day when one of Mitt’s fine strapping Mormon missionary sons takes time out from serving his country by working for his dad and takes on Chelsea or George P. Bush or . . .

What we have here, my friends, is our very own War of the Posers, er, Roses. So after the Obama administration unfortunately emulates the mayoral regimes of Harold Washington and David Dinkins and vanishes into history with the thanks of a grateful press corps, you can bet the American aristocracy will reassert its prerogatives and its hereditary right to the White House.

Since there’s nothing we can do about it, we might as well make the best of it. And that’s where Hollywood comes in, with an interactive TV and online show that combines the bloodline-mayhem of Lancaster v. York, the hand-to-hand combat of American Gladiators, and the personal drama of Desperate Housewives.

Picture if you will: It runs for six months every four years and entirely replaces our current cumbersome and error-prone “election system” with a series of audience-posed challenges that get progressively harder and bloodier. Like Highlander, there can be only one: the last scion standing wins the big enchilada, while the losers lick their wounds, breed, and prepare for four years’ hence. Best of all, it’s absolutely free.

You know what I’m going to call it, don’t you? Of course you do: Family Feud II: This Time, It’s Personal.

And before you tell me I’m crazy, ask yourself: If we had done it my way the past 50 years, how would things be any different?

Politics defined

2008-12-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

From The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce:

Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Created Equal: How Christianity Shaped the West

2008-12-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

It's a common assumption that America today is divided between two contrasting ideologies which compete for dominance in influencing both the nature of our government, and the nature of our society. But neither of these ideologies -- liberalism and conservatism -- is sufficient to give the nation its character and its values, or to maintain our freedoms.

Author Dinesh D'Souza discusses the foundation of western civilization -- a foundation without which the west would have lacked the essential principles of equality and liberty, which stem from the conviction of the dignity and value of all human beings. The following is adapted from a speech D'Souza gave on September 16, 2008, at the Hillsdale College Leadership Seminar in Colorado Springs.

IN RECENT YEARS there has arisen a new atheism that represents a direct attack on Western Christianity. Books such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great, and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, all contend that Western society would be better off if we could eradicate from it the last vestiges of Christianity. But Christianity is largely responsible for many of the principles and institutions that even secular people cherish—chief among them equality and liberty.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he called the proposition “self-evident.” But he did not mean that it is immediately evident. It requires a certain kind of learning. And indeed most cultures throughout history, and even today, reject the proposition. At first glance, there is admittedly something absurd about the claim of human equality, when all around us we see dramatic evidence of inequality. People are unequal in height, in weight, in strength, in stamina, in intelligence, in perseverance, in truthfulness, and in about every other quality. But of course Jefferson knew this. He was asserting human equality of a special kind. Human beings, he was saying, are moral equals, each of whom possesses certain equal rights. They differ in many respects, but each of their lives has a moral worth no greater and no less than that of any other. According to this doctrine, the rights of a Philadelphia street sweeper are the same as those of Jefferson himself.

This idea of the preciousness and equal worth of every human being is largely rooted in Christianity. Christians believe that God places infinite value on every human life. Christian salvation does not attach itself to a person’s family or tribe or city. It is an individual matter. And not only are Christians judged at the end of their lives as individuals, but throughout their lives they relate to God on that basis. This aspect of Christianity had momentous consequences.

Though the American founders were inspired by the examples of Greece and Rome, they also saw limitations in those examples. Alexander Hamilton wrote that it would be “as ridiculous to seek for [political] models in the simple ages of Greece and Rome as it would be to go in quest of them among the Hottentots and Laplanders.” In The Federalist Papers, we read at one point that the classical idea of liberty decreed “to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next….” And elsewhere: “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” While the ancients had direct democracy that was susceptible to the unjust passions of the mob and supported by large-scale slavery, we today have representative democracy, with full citizenship and the franchise extended in principle to all. Let us try to understand how this great change came about.

A New Morality

In ancient Greece and Rome, individual human life had no particular value in and of itself. The Spartans left weak children to die on the hillside. Infanticide was common, as it is common even today in many parts of the world. Fathers who wanted sons had few qualms about drowning their newborn daughters. Human beings were routinely bludgeoned to death or mauled by wild animals in the Roman gladiatorial arena. Many of the great classical thinkers saw nothing wrong with these practices. Christianity, on the other hand, contributed to their demise by fostering moral outrage at the mistreatment of innocent human life...

In sum, the eradication of Christianity—and of organized religion in general—would also mean the gradual extinction of the principles of human dignity. Consider human equality. Why do we hold to it? The Christian idea of equality in God’s eyes is undeniably largely responsible. The attempt to ground respect for equality on a purely secular basis ignores the vital contribution by Christianity to its spread. It is folly to believe that it could survive without the continuing aid of religious belief.

If we cherish what is distinctive about Western civilization, then—whatever our religious convictions—we should respect rather than denigrate its Christian roots.

For the full article, go here.

More consideration of "The Political Illlusion"

2008-12-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

In his book God and Government, Charles Colson further discussed aspects of Ellul's concept of "the political illusion" --

[Christians should believe] more in the power of prayer than in the power of politics;...that the message "repent, be converted, and trust in Jesus" [can] topple even an authoritarian leader...

Such [a] belief runs counter to the myth that all human problems are political and solvable by all-powerful human institutions. An extreme example was the prominent conservative Christian leader who declared in 1985, after Congress failed to pass his legislative agenda, "The only way to have a genuine spiritual revival is to have legislative reform...I think we have been legislated out of the possibility of spiritual revival." Evidently, the work of the Kingdom of God has been defeated by a majority vote in the kingdoms of man...

The late Jacques Ellul could well have been describing this leader when he wrote that politics has become "the supreme religion of the age."

The political illusion springs from a diminishing belief in God and the growth of big government. What people once expected from the Almighty, they now expect from the almighty bureaucracy. That's a bad trade for anyone; but for the Chrisitian, it's rank idolatry...

This unwavering focus heightens both the promise and expectation of what government can do. Political rhetoric, therefore, must offer panaceas to all human ills...

With government policy so dependent on public reaction, it's little wonder that the celebrity syndrome has become such a major force in Western politics. [In order to gain more widespread media attention -- any media attention, for that matter -- on the debate over a congressional farm bill in the mid-1980s, the committee chairman called three actresses -- Jane Fonda, Sissy Spacek, and Jessica Lange -- to testify on the bill.] What were the qualifications of these stars?...They had all played farm women in recent films. Celebrities, as Time film critic Richard Schickle has observed, have become "the chief agents of moral change in America...

"Unfortunately, [he's] right. The "farm wives" have been followed, in recent years, by Julia Roberts testifying about Rett Syndrome, Richard Gere about China's treatment of Tibet, and George Clooney about the tragedy of Darfur...As media expert Eric Denzenhall explains, "We're living in an age of optics. Expertise does not photograph well. Julia Robers does"...

[Part of the political illusion's effect is that] whether a policy is good or bad, a success or a failure, is of no account; all that matters is the emotion its instant image induces...

Images pile on images, day after day; anesthetizing the public so they feel individually impotent believing that all power resides in images they see on their television screens. This eventually erodes their own sense of political responsibility and makes them easy prey to the appetite of an authoritarian state. Ellul believes that that consequence is irresistible. Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt would agree, writing that the chief characteristic of tyranny is isolation of the individual, denying him access to the public realm "where he would should himself, see and be seen, hear and be heard"...

The only thing that stands between the multitudes and totalitarianism, says Ellul, are the mediating structures of society: family, small groups of citizens, churches, voluntary associations that are independent of and resistant to the collective state...

Tocqueville made the same point that if the American experiment were to succeed, it would require the continued help of voluntary associations.

Of these independent institutions, the church should be the one best able to expose the political illusion. For the message of a transcendent reality is a resounding warning against the futility of seeking immortality from teh instruments and institutions of this life. Mastery of nature through technology has given modern man the illusion that he has mastered life itself. Attempts to create alternatives to His rule are futile...

Hannah Arendt [has written that], "the fall of the Roman Empire plainly demonstrated that no work of mortal hands can be immortal, and it was accompanied by the rise of the Christian gospel of an everlasting individual life to its position as the exclusive religion of Western mankind. Both together made any striving for an earthly immortality futile and unnecessary"...

Ideology, which in so many parts of the world has replaced true religion, is powerless as well. As Ellul points out, the promised utopias of the twentieth century, either Marxist or Fascist, are doomed because they accept the essential premises of current civilization and move with its lines of internal development: "Thus, utilizing what this world itself offers them, they become its slaves, although they thing they are transforming it." Even massive weapons of destruction fail to assure anything for today's mightiest governments. Wars reach no permanet solutions; there is no such thing as a lasting peace or, as Americans once so believed, "a war to end all wars." Terrorists stalk the globe, and governments can do little to stop them.

Wars proliferate; political solutions fail; frustrations rise. Yet we (evangelical Christians included) continue to look to governments to resolve problems beyond their capability. The illusion persits.

Colson on "The Political Illusion"

2008-12-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Election day, November 4, 2008, ended not only the most expensive presidential campaign in US history, but probably the longest. Barack Obama formally announced his presidential candidacy on February 10, 2007, nearly 21 months before election day, 2008, and almost a full year before the first primary of the 2008 campaign. Hillary Clinton announced the formation of her presidential exploratory committee on January 20, 2007.

The news media, of course, began reporting on the presidential horserace the day after President Bush won reelection in 2004. We live in an era of non-stop political campaigns. Even as President-Elect Obama puts together his cabinet, the speculation is already running hot as to who will run against him in 2012: Sarah Palin? Mitt Romney? Tim Pawlenty? Even former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is acquiring a small but impressed group of supporters.

Charles Colson commented on the character of perpetual campaigns back in mid-2007, observing that with some 15 months until the general election of 2008, if Americans were getting sick and tired of the campaign, there wasn't much evidence of such weariness. "The campaign is all some people can think about," Colson wrote in an August 7, 2007, article on Christianity Today's online magazine. "Everywhere I go, people seem almost frantic to know who I'm for and who I think will win. When I say, 'It's too early to tell,' they're crestfallen, as if desperate to attach themselves to a candidate."

Observing the obsessive compulsion with which Americans follow national politics, Colson asked, "Have we finally succumbed to what Jacques Ellul, the eccentric French Reformed thinker, prophesied in the 1960s—the politicization of all aspects of life?" A rhetorical question, to which the answer is "Yes."

Colson makes his point, and in so doing, summarizes Ellul's theme in his book The Political Illusion:

Ellul foresaw the Information Age and the media's need for a steady flow of information to feed the populace. Media would therefore gravitate to covering centers of power. Politicians would be willing accomplices, because they'd gain fame and clout. All of this has happened, creating what Ellul's prophetic book, The Political Illusion, predicted: the idea that every problem has a political solution. This, he warned, leads to increasing dependence on the state by ordinary citizens and decreasing citizen control of government.

From Kennedy's New Frontier to LBJ's Great Society to President Bush's No Child Left Behind education initiative, challengers promise new programs, and, when elected, try to deliver. The result: Programs pile upon programs, agencies upon agencies, and the whole structure of government becomes so unwieldy it can hardly function. We saw this happen in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and I fear we might see it again during another terrorist attack.

While political obsession may be entertaining, the people are the ultimate losers. Virtually everybody has to deal with government, whether to obtain a driver's license or to open a business. We often end up mired in bureaucratic gridlock, even over minor issues—precisely as Ellul predicted.
Even Christians can succumb to the political illusion. Several years ago, a Christian leader blurted: "I think we have been legislated out of the possibility of a spiritual revival." Some Christians seem almost defeatist when "our" candidates lose.

But the real evil of the illusion is that it distracts us from other aspects of life. Politics are important, of course: Christians have a duty to be the best of citizens, bringing concerns of justice and righteousness into public life. The importance of being active in the political realm becomes clear when we realize that two Bush appointees to the Supreme Court made the difference in the Court's decision to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion. But we must keep political activity in perspective, seeing that it fulfills its proper role in what Dutch politician and church leader Abraham Kuyper labeled "sphere sovereignty"—each sphere (family, church, government) carrying out its own responsibility before God.

This means we must guard against government encroachment on other spheres and not let the political illusion blind us to what makes life rich and meaningful: family, church, and community. In short, culture.
Politics is, after all, only an expression of culture. It cannot be the ultimate source of meaning and influence in any society if people wish to remain free.

Ironically, while Western nations appear to be in the grip of the political illusion, the developing world is more realistic. A few years ago, political observers were convinced that South America's poor would embrace liberation theology with its Marxist promises of justice and wealth redistribution. But to their surprise, the people rejected it. The reason: They knew governments were corrupt, and they distrusted political messiahs.

They chose instead Pentecostalism and conservative Christianity. Women discovered that conversion meant their husbands would stay home with them instead of going to taverns at night, and thus they became great evangelists. The church delivered the goods, and that was far more attractive than the vain promises of politicians.

Perhaps, after this exhausting, multimillion-dollar presidential campaign, Americans may be so gorged on politics that we will finally say "enough!" Then we, like our neighbors to the south, will reject the promises of political messiahs in favor of building up the crumbling cultural infrastructure: our families, our churches, and our communities. We who have historically kept politics and culture in balance can help open our neighbors' eyes to the same realization: A far richer life is ahead once we reject illusory campaign promises.

The Evangelical Manifesto

2008-11-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

The following was lifted, verbatim, from “Between Two Worlds: A Mix of Theology, Philosophy, Politics, and Culture,” a blog produced by Justin Taylor:

An Interview with Os Guinness about the Evangelical Manifesto

The following is an interview with Os Guinness about the publication of the document, An Evangelical Manifesto: A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment (which I have summarized in a separate post).

What was the origin of this manifesto?

The genesis of the Manifesto came three years ago when in the course of a single week I talked to a dozen people who were all giving up on Evangelicalism. Two were eminent Evangelical scholars, one was an activist and community organizer, and the rest were thoughtful lay people. All of them were disgusted at the cultural and political overlay that obscured any positive meaning of the term. I thought to myself that if Evangelical meant what they thought, I wouldn’t be Evangelical either. But I have a very different view, and one that is deeper, earlier, and more decisive than any other Christian label. The idea for the Manifesto was born that week, and has rolled forward since then—despite all skepticism and sometimes outright opposition.

Where is it being published?

It will be published at the National Press Club on May 7 in Washington DC, and then on a web site: www.anevangelicalmanifesto.com, along with a study guide. We have more than 80 signatures as early signers, but hope that in the spirit of the Bereans in the New Testament, many others will read it, think and pray over it, and join the cause of the call to reform.

It seems that some have already sought to politicize this document (including a focus on who has and who has not signed it). What is your response to this spin on the project?

We do not claim to speak for all Evangelicals, we do not claim the Manifesto is faultless, we are not setting up any new power base, and we emphasize that we are not out to attack anyone or exclude anyone. But the central purpose – calling us back to being better followers of Jesus – is not political, and it is ironic that such a call should itself be politicized and by Evangelicals rather than the secular press! I trust that when the dust settles, people will see the central purpose of the Manifesto and respond in good faith rather than trigger another flurry of culture warring.

For the average “person in the pew,” are there some tangible steps he or she can take to promote the civil public square you envision?

The lack of a vision of a civil public square is the Achilles heel of the Christian right, and the main reason we are so often accused of being ‘Christian theocrats’ and even ‘Christian fascists.’ For example, in all our public debating we should be clear and vocal about how we respect the rights of those we disagree with, and above all we should be known for truly loving our enemies, as Jesus called his followers to do and great Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce always did. Let there be an end to all demonizing of our enemies and the rabid culture warring that is so characteristic of the present scene, and so contradictory to the way of Jesus.

And now for something completely different

2008-11-29T16:42:00.000-08:00

Jacques Ellul is probably the most influential scholar of the 20th Century that no one has heard of. Ellul was a university professor in France, a public official, a sociologist, a theologian, and an analyst of western society. Whether his subject was law, sociology, technology, politics, scripture, faith, or revelation, his perspective was unique and insightful. His writing influenced the likes of Charles Colson and Os Guinness. His views on the nature and influence of politics have proven to be prescient.

While Ellul’s political writings are myriad and many are still in print (or in any used bookstore worth its salt), probably his most eye-opening essay on politics appeared as a chapter to his 1973 book Living Faith, and is entitled “Politics: The Realm of the Demonic.” Whether one agrees with Ellul or not, or even understands what he’s saying, his perspective is important when considering the life lived in following Christ, and the current political culture of our society. The following are excerpts from this chapter of Living Faith.

If evil [in society] has piled upon evil, if the tide of danger is rising, the reason lies in politics and nowhere else. Politics is the contemporary image of absolute evil. It is satanic, diabolical, the home base of the demonic. And when I say “politics,” I am not pointing at the state…The point I want to make concerns those who would conquer and use the state for their own purposes…

Politics is the acquisition of power; the means necessary for getting it, and once you have it, the means for defending yourself against the enemy and so holding on to it. But what does one use it for — for goodness and virtue? No, one uses it for power; it’s an end in itself. And that’s all there is to politics. All the fine talk about politics as a means of establishing justice, so forth and so forth, is nothing but a smokescreen that on the one hand conceals harsh, vulgar reality and on the other justifies the
universal passion for politics, the universal conviction that everything is political, that politics is the most noble human activity, whereas it really is the most ignoble. It is, strickly speaking, the source of all the evils that plague our time…

Politics is diabolical. The devil can be the one who divides, separates, disjoins, disrupts communions, brings about divorce, breaks up dialog. In the Bible the devil is the one who instigates the break between God and humankind…God creates humans free, bidding them govern creation and subdue it. The devil induces them to declare themselves independent of God’s will, to seek autonomy. And in the same way he transforms the power given by God into a will to dominate.

This kind of distortion is typical of the way the devil acts, pretending to accomplish God’s work, while transforming it into its opposite…

[S]peaking concretely of society today, what is the father of lies? It is politics, and I would go so far as to say politics alone…

[P]olitics is the divisive force par excellence. It is politics, and not economics that causes class divisions and shapes class struggle…
Politics creates nothing…nor does it unify society, make it humanly responsible, or lead it forward. Politics produces nothing but division and inner conflict…

That’s how politics is; it induces, lures, and provokes people into frenzied conflicts. It makes us deadly serious about the cause or the doctrine or the opinions that must be defended against those of others…

We hear solemn, grandiloquent political proclamations, but their only real, long-term effect is discord…But for the moment people believe them, with their eyes closed. Politics makes us totally blind…

It stirs up irreversible conflicts…

When people have dealings with individuals of different color or race, when they meet with strange customs, with curious ways of dressing and acting, it doesn’t necessarily prevent mutual understanding. People are quite capable of respecting one another. But as soon as politics seizes on physical or cultural differences, then these become grounds for exclusion, and racism is born. Racism is always stirred up by politics, making use of natural feelings of antagonism — which were never an absolute bar to coexistence, despite occasional clashes. Thus politics makes differences murderous, conflicts irreversible, disagreements irreparable. This is true diabolical discord…

The diabolical has taken on different forms down through history, and currently, the devil, the sower of discord, is politics, and politics alone. We see it diabolically corrupting the law, lying about justice, arousing false hopes (ever brighter tomorrows), driving people into a labyrinth of hostility.

That is just how the diabolical element operates: it dramatizes everything; it leads to breaches that can’t be healed; to one hopeless impasses after another. And it does this by seduction, by promises, by illusions. We shouldn’t forget that the principal weapon of every political system is propaganda and that propaganda is essentially a lie. In our time the father of lies speaks through propaganda, which engenders
passion and false clarity, burning commitment and inner alienation…

Where in our time do we hear the great accusations that condemn certain persons or groups as absolutely evil? What plays the role of world prosecutor, bringing charges against a whole class or nation or race? The answer can only be politics…The satanic is the pure distilled essence of the political. Gone is any reason or balance, any human consideration at all which might serve as a mitigating force…

How many times have I read the words (which seem to have been written in a trance), “Capitalism is absolute evil”? The writer is a Christian, as it happens. But the phrase might just as well have been, “Communism is absolute evil.” This accusation leaves no room for pardon, for leniency, for conversion. Once you have been a communist, you can’t change; you remain crushed beneath the weight of the satanic accusation. The enemy, by definition, has nothing good or admirable about them; the only remedy is to wipe them out completely. This is the only solution, and it was invented by politics.

No doubt some readers are already objecting, “But aren’t you really talking about religion?”…My answer on this point is direct: yes indeed, religion has become satanic, every time it has fallen into the grip of politics.
The dreadful part of the Inquisition was not the church’s doing, but the crimes perpetrated on behalf of and often by the state…The Inquisition did not resort to extreme measures until it came under the control of the king of Portugal, the king of Spain, and the republic of Venice. Excommunication was nothing more than a remedium animi (healing of the soul) until it became a political tool. And who was responsible for the forced conversions? Who used violence to convert the Saxons? Charlemagne. Who used violence to convert the New World Indians? The conquistadors…

[J]ust as politics tries to pass itself off as the whole of reality, dethroning God in the process, conversely politics raises accusation to the status of an absolute, thereby counterfeiting — that is, utterly falsifying — divine justice. So it is no facile literary image but a far-reaching insight into the nature of politics to call it satanic, to view it as Satan’s handiwork…

People always need to feel just, and up till now it has been the task of religion to provide people with the means of self-purification…The great classical religions have disappeared, however, or have lost their power through lack of faith. But people’s religious needs are as intense as ever…And the only way now available to them to achieve this goal is through accusation, through the political discovery and designation of a scapegoat…

Politics today is indeed the realm of the demonic. It is the realm of total illusion in our society. Politics is the art of multiplying false problems, of setting up false goals, and of starting false debates, false with reference to the concrete life of concrete people, false with reference to the actual socioeconomic trends that politics never touches.
Having created this false orientation, politics mobilizes everyone’s energies…

Politics becomes the necessary universal mediator between the individual and society. Politics offers the only possible way to act upon society as a whole…

In the end, as everyone knows, the modern state claims to be our savior. We have already made the transition to the state-as-Providence, but now we’ve gone beyond that to the state as dispenser of salvation.
What is actually a lie proclaims its salvific mission — such is the power of evil to disintegrate reality…

A final note: Of all the writing Jacques Ellul produced on the topic of politics, this chapter in Living Faith is probably the most provocative (and some might say “inflammatory”). Regardless of whether one accepts Ellul’s conclusion that politics is “diabolical” and “demonic,” his observations about the characteristics of politics have the ring of truth: that politics heightens divisions, heightens passions, inhibits cooperation and discussion, divides rather than unites, and mutates political opinions and ideologies to a level of quasi-religious dogma.

Ellul wrote Living Faith some 35 years ago when our political culture still retained a certain amount of civility and bipartisan cooperation. Since the publication of his book and this chapter, politics has become baser, more rigid, more dogmatic, more divisive, more of a blood sport, and more futile. Ellul tapped into something and foresaw the condition of politics as it is today. In other writings (e.g., The Political Illusion, and Hope In Time of Abandonment), Ellul observes that politics has become less about bringing people together, or influencing voters to a particular way of thinking on a variety of issues, but has become the art of dividing the electorate such that your candidate or party gets 50%+1 of the votes in any election.

If nothing else, voters need to knock politics down a few notches in their own consideration and recognize that “everything is NOT political,” and dethrone politics as something akin to a contemporary religion accompanied by the fervor of self-righteousness.

The secular world, in its desperate need to find something to believe in, may unconsciously adopt politics as its dominant religion, with some political ideology as its foundational theology, but the church shouldn’t. The insight that politics has become something of a divisive false religion may not impress the world, but for the disciple seeking to follow Christ, such should be seriously considered, and a new attitude about politics needs to be taken.

The Cult of the Presidency

2008-11-29T16:38:00.000-08:00

Back in the primary season this past election year, Gene Healy had some insightful comments over at ReasonOnline on the impossible (and foolish) expectations most Americans place upon the Presidency:

The chief executive of the United States is no longer a mere constitutional officer charged with faithful execution of the laws. He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise. He—or she—is the one who answers the phone at 3 a.m. to keep our children safe from harm. The modern president is America’s shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He’s also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth.

Perhaps we should retitle the office “The Supreme Oprah.”

This perspective on the role of our Chief Executive is tantamount to rank idolatry. It also makes practical governance nearly impossible. We — the American people in general, both those on the left and on the right — have placed upon the Presidency expectations that cannot realistically be achieved. It’s more evidence that in our secular society, where politics has become the supreme religion, the President has become the High Priest.

God help President-Elect Obama. With the high expectations we place on our Presidents, our new President will have to exercise great skill not to be perceived as a failure.

Political Vision and Illusions

2008-11-29T16:16:00.001-08:00

From the jacket of the 2003 book Political Visions & Illusions by David T. Koyzis:

The end of the Cold War has brought about more than the triumph of some political ideologies and the disappearance of others. In fact, the collapse of communism has created a vacuum quickly being filled by various alternative visions, ranging from ethnic nationalism to individualistic liberalism. But political ideologies are not merely a matter of governmental efficacy. Rather, political ideologies are intrinsically and inescapably religious — each carries certain assumptions about the nature of reality, individuals and society, as well as a particular vision for the common good. These fundamental beliefs transcend the political sphere, and the astute Christian observer should thus discern the subtle ways in which ideologies are rooted in idolatrous worldviews.In this comprehensive study, political scientist David Koyzis surveys the key political ideologies of our era, including liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democracy and socialism. Each philosophy is given careful analysis and fair critique, unpacking the worldview issues inherent to each and pointing out essential strengths and weaknesses. Koyzis concludes by proposing alternative models that flow out of Christianity’s historic engagement with the public square, retrieving approaches that hold promise for the complex political realities of the twenty-first century. Writing with broad, international perspective and keen analytical insight, Koyzis offers a sound guide for Christians working in the public square, culture watchers, political pundits and all students of modern political thought.

From the Introduction:

“Ideology, Religion, and Idolatry.”

So what is an ideology? At this point I shall tip my hand and indicate that I view ideologies as modern types of that ancient phenomenon idolatry, complete with their own accounts of sin and redemption…Ideologies attempt to offer a total explanation for the world and its history and thus all ideologies contain totalitarian elements. They read the whole of reality through a single idea and deny the possibility that any genuine knowledge can be attained through experience apart from that idea. In contemporary parlance, they exempt themselves from a “reality check.” It is a short step from ideology to totalitarianism…

[Ideology] attempts to eliminate different interests and to mold the people in accordance with a single idea. It tries to simplify the complexity of society into a monolithic vision…Politics is content to make do with the existing state of society and to conciliate whatever interests are currently there. Ideology attempts to remake, not only government, but education, industry, art, even domesticity and private affections…

For [Czech Republic President Vaclav] Havel, ideology threatens not only politics but also the ordinary aims of life itself…In what he labels the “post-totalitarian” societies of the former Soviet bloc, ideology claims to offer the people a sense of identity and dignity while in reality stripping them of this. “It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality,” [Havel writes]. It contructs a world which assimilates all people into a self-contained alternative pseudo-reality in which slavery passes for liberty, censorship for free expression, bureaucracy for democracy, and arbitrary power for legal authority…[P]eople are compelled to “live within a lie”…

Christians are, of course, concerned with truth, both in absolute and relative senses. Truth is an attribute of God, and Jesus calls himself the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6)…If…ideologies represent fundamentally flawed conceptions of the world, then we Christians are obligated to take them seriously and to try to discern in exactly which ways they go wrong…I shall concur with the tradition that sees ideology as a type of false consciousness, and will argue further that it is rooted in the biblical category of ideology…

I believe a case can be made that those phenomena normally classified as ideologies do indeed originate in idolatrous religion. These include liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, ideological democracy and socialism, among others…

[A] precondition contributing to the rise of ideologies is the secularization of the Christian faith and of the cultures… Used here…secularization means nothing less than the increasing rejection of the Christian faith by a society as a whole…

[I]deologies are inescapably religious… It…might be more accurate to say that an ideology flows out of the (idolatrous) religious commitment of a person or community…

Idolatry takes something within God’s creation, attempts to elevate it above the boundary separating Creator from creature, and makes of it a kind of god….[I]dolatry further tries to bring the rest of creation into the service of the invented god….

[E]veryone serves a god of some sort…[E]veryone is transformed into the image of the god she serves…[P]eople structure their society in their own image…

[E]ach of the ideologies is based on a specific soteriology, that is, on a worked-out theory promising deliverance to human beings from some fundamental evil that is viewed as the source of a broad range of human ills…”The mature ideology is a false revelation of creation, fall and redemption.” Christianity sees Jesus Christ as the source of salvation; the ideologies see salvation coming to us through, for example, the maximization of individual freedom, the communal ownership of all wealth, the liberation of the nation from foreign rule, the submission of individuals to the general will and so forth…

[T]he ideologies tend to locate the source of this fundamental evil somewhere within the creation…Thus the ideology can be seen to partake of that ancient heresy of Gnosticism, for which the physical world is deemed intrinsically sinful, and salvation is viewed as deliverance from its supposed confines…

[I]deologies have a fundamentally distorted view of the world, and hence of government and politics. This distorted worldview has tremendous consequences for political practice, because people inevitably live out their religious worldviews. Because the followers of ideologies see the world as not belonging to God but to themselves, they misunderstand the character of the world…

[Ideologies] are…rooted in the predominant secular belief in human autonomy, according to which human beings determine the course of their own lives without reference to God’s will…

[T]hese goals themselves become gods to which ordinary flesh-and-blood people may have to be sacrificed…

[T]he heart of the argument of the book…is that it is possible to transcend the ideologies and to embrace a spirit more compatible with the Christian understanding of creation, fall and redemption…

We…will argue…for a biblical – and hence creational and redemptive – understanding of politics and its place in God’s world. We shall, in short, offer an alternative vision – one which, it is to be hoped, will take us beyond the reductionisms and idolatries of the ideologies insofar as it offers a truer and fuller account of the world and of politics…

Focusing on the more important thing

2008-11-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

I have a picture in my prayer binder of a solitary Special Forces soldier, flanked on his left and on his right by two fighters of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. It’s a photo I scanned from the cover of the book The Hunt for Bin Laden by Robin Moore, about the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. Under the picture I placed a quote from the governor of a province in Afghanistan that was under Northern Alliance control. He said, in a question to a US Special Forces soldier sent to his area by the Defense Department, “Where are all your men? You have come alone? How can you help us defeat our enemy with only one man? The Russians sent tens of thousands…Bush sends us one…What kind of men are these Green Berets that will come alone?”…and then a note, in parentheses: “Fewer than 100 American soldiers were on the ground when Kabul fell.”

Since the 2000 election, my wife and I have been engaged with another couple in a weekly prayer meeting. Over this time, we’ve found that prayer, and the ministry of intercession for individuals, for the church, for our communities, for the nation and the world, is a bit like being part of God’s “Special Forces” – as God trains in the nature of effective prayer, and in using His weapons, we’ve come to realize that we don’t need tens of thousands to punch through to victory, but hundreds, scores, maybe even just a handful. I pulled a quote from the 2004 book A Table in the Presence by Lt. Carey Cash, a chaplain with the first Marine battalion which crossed into Iraq in 2003: “More things are wrought by prayer than this world ever knows of. — Alfred Lord Tennyson.” The spiritual significance of this is something we’re learning. And then there’s this:

I’ve probably watched the movie “Patton” about a dozen times. There’s a scene in the movie where Patton orders up a “weather prayer” to clear the snow storm so the troops can receive air cover during the Battle of the Bulge. The event actually happened, and was related in an article in an Army publication in 1951 by Patton’s Third Army chaplain, James O’Neill. In the 1951 article, then-General O’Neill wrote,

“Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight; and if the world goes from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers. ‘Hands lifted up,’ said Bosuet, ’smash more battalions than hands that strike.’ Gideon of Bible fame was least in his father’s house. He came from Israel’s smallest tribe. But he was a mighty man of valor. His strength lay not in his military might, but in his recognition of God’s proper claims upon his life. He reduced his Army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred men lest the people of Israel would think that their valor had saved them. We have no intention to reduce our vast striking force. But we must urge, instruct, and indoctrinate every fighting man to pray as well as fight. In Gideon’s day, and in our own, [the] spiritually alert…carry the burdens and bring the victories.”

To repeat the comment of General O’Neill, Patton’s chaplain, “The spiritually alert…carry the burdens and bring the victories.” We’re finding this to be true whether the battlefield is in Iraq, or in America, or in our home community, or in the personal lives of the people we know. Persistent prayer is a recognition that God is sovereign in even political affairs. The spiritually alert – not a party, not a President – carry the burdens and bring the victories. It’s long past time that this became the dominant perspective of Christian voters.

Why the cross can do what politics can;'t

2008-11-29T15:58:00.002-08:00

Dr. Erwin Lutzer, evangelical Pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, in this 1999 book, addressed the fascination of Christians with politics as a means of affecting the values of society, in contrast to reliance upon the cross of Christ and the power of the gospel to change people’s hearts, and eventually the culture.

From the introduction:

Have we…forgotten that God’s power is more clearly seen in the message of the cross than in any political or social plan we might devise? Might not our search for some antidotes to our grievous [cultural] ills be symptomatic of our lost confidence in the power of the gospel to change people from the inside out?…

At a time when we need to engage our culture with the one truth that has any hope of transforming it, many among us have turned aside to fight the world on its own terms and with its own strategies…

We are tempted to think that our times are unique. But the fact is that the disciples and their followers had all of our national woes times ten; and yet without any political base, without a voting bloc in the Roman senate, and without as much as one sympathetic Roman emperor, they changed their world, turning it “upside down” as Luke the historian put it (Acts 17:6)…

This book is based on two fundamental premises. First, that the problems of America are too far gone to be remedied by a change of administrations in Washington and other levels of government…We dare not think that solidifying Christians into one voting bloc to confront the world with our own version of political power will actually change the direction of our disintegrating culture…

The question is not whether we should be involved in our cultural battles; the question is whether we are willing to fight the right battles in the right way…The answer is not isolation, but confrontation – with the right attitude and the right message. It would be a tragedy indeed if we just got accustomed to the darkness.

However, the other danger is that we become so overburdened with social/political issues that our message is lost amid these skirmishes…

We must not let the world define our agenda. Nor can we hope to fight the world with its own methods…

The second premise of this book is my deep conviction that our so-called culture war is really a spiritual war. In other words, our problems are not fundamentally abortion, trash television, and homosexual values…As always our greatest challenge is theological, not political or cultural…

If there is any good news in America, Christians must proclaim it. The truly good news will not come from Washington in the form of new legislation or a proclamation from the president, or even the Supreme Court…

We can be involved in legislation and moral crusades, but let us not think that this is the way to transform society…

[I]t is our society’s view of God, and not society’s view of morals, that lies at the heart of our dilemma…

The cross can shine a light much more powerful than political victories…

We must be convinced that we have chosen the wrong path because we have chosen the wrong god. So our first agenda is to return to the message that made the church great.

A timeless truth

2008-11-29T15:08:00.000-08:00

Chesterton is quoted in the sidebar comment "About this blog." Here's another Chesterton quote that applies at all times, and particularly to our political culture in America:

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."