Category: Politics Page 1 of 4

Refreshingly, someone told me the other day that they did not care whether I was Republican or Democrat or Independent. I told them that I was simply disgusted, but I don’t think that is an organized party.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that what I want in a political candidate of whatever level or stripe is someone who

1. speaks what he believes,
2. believes what I believe, and
3. tells the truth.

I might settle for anyone who simply could be counted on to tell the truth. Those are rare.

When I saw a bumper sticker on the truck of a sadly bitter driver (his whole tailgate was covered with similar sentiments) that said “Obama lied – deal with it”, my first flush of frustration at such polarizing sentiments was then matched with sadness. There is truth to the joke that you can tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving. I don’t want this to be the case. I want there to be heroes, and I want my heroes to tell the truth.

The idea that politicians lie is such a part of our popular psyche that it becomes easy money for cartoonists and comedians.

I suppose that Abraham Lincoln adopted the name ‘Honest Abe’ to differentiate himself from the political pack. I wonder if he was successful. George Washington confessed his wrong in The Incident of the Cherry Tree, but even that may have been a story made up to overcome the aged presumption that politicians, of which he was one, lie.

I want my heroes to be men of character who tell the truth, and there seems to be something about the political domain that dashes such idealism to the ground.

One of the striking things about Erik Larson’s superb book Dead Wake about the sinking of the British cruise liner Lusitania is the bulk of intelligence that warned of a disaster and the inaction of the British government to intervene in any way. In the end, the blame fell on the Lusitania’s captain William Turner, a blame he bore heavily but unjustly.

The government’s official line in its later investigations was that the ship was hit by two torpedoes and not one. That thoroughly untrue claim was designed to imply the inevitability of the disaster and to divert attention from the absence of British preventative measures.

Winston Churchill, by all measures a political hero, was at the time eager to get United States involvement in WWI, and so he turned a blind eye to the fact that the Lusitania was sailing into a trap. He would forever claim, against the contrary evidence, that the attack was unexpected and the government was unaware. Both were fictions. Larson comments:

“The final humiliation for Turner came later, with publication of Winston Churchill’s book, in which Churchill persisted in blaming Turner for the disaster and, despite possessing clear knowledge to the contrary, reasserted that the ship had been hit by two torpedoes.” (page 347)

Lies are hard to prove, and I generally want to give people, even political people, the benefit of the doubt. But when politicians’ lips move, history suggests they are at best, ‘redistributing the facts’.

Note: I wrote the bulk of this some time ago and it never was posted. Nevertheless, the sentiments expressed do seem to me to be worthy of consideration and so I am posting it here even though the issues and events referenced are dated.

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Men and women facing arrest have the right to remain silent. Preachers, apparently, do not.

For some Christians alarms ring constantly on the cultural front and if preachers do not preach to that alarm we are cowering in fear and shirking our God-given calling.

There are many ways I fail in my calling. I question my fitness for ministry weekly, if not daily. But do I fail as the alarmists tell me I do when I do not speak to every cultural issue or crisis? I don’t think so.

A couple years ago, I addressed this subject, and so to cover the same territory is redundant. And yet the demand that preachers preach “to the current crisis” continues to surface.

There are many reasons to resist that demand, not the least of which is the ignorance that often swirls about issues when they first break onto the scene. Lack of information should breed care. It often does not.

We have this week alarmist fingers pointing at Houston, Texas, where, we are told, government is flexing its authoritarian muscle in subpoenaing sermons from pastors. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, a man with the ears of many and at times good insight, says that

A government has no business using subpoena power to intimidate or bully the preaching and instruction of any church, any synagogue, any mosque, or any other place of worship. The pastors of Houston should tell the government that they will not trample over consciences, over the First Amendment and over God-given natural rights.

I’m stunned by that. Absent from his post is the reality that the pastors in question SUED the city of Houston, and the subpoena is simply part of the discovery phase of a legal proceeding that the ministers themselves initiated. One may still find the city’s reaction an over reach. But we do no one any favors, and especially those who are looking to our leaders to be thoughtful men, when we leave out pertinent details in our reporting of it.

Just this morning news broke that a city in Idaho was threatening to fine or jail a couple of ordained ministers for their refusal to perform a gay marriage. Again, this is an issue worth watching. The implications could be broad. From some posts (an example is here) one can easily get the impression that the city is going after all Christian ministers. But the couple in question do not pastor a church but a for-profit wedding chapel. They are a business. Again, issues abound, but the alarmists do us a disservice in screaming loudly in our ears and omitting information crucial to the issue at hand.

And if we all do not feed out of their hands and march to their drum, our very credentials as faithful men and women are questioned. That is wrong.

We were told on Twitter this week by one respected evangelical writer, Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas), that

Every pastor in America should preach about [the Houston subpoenas] on Sunday. If your preacher won’t, find another church. This is real.

I get that Metaxas’ has a thoughtful perspective on history. Though his book on Bonhoeffer was awful (I seem to be the only one on the planet who thought so), he has thought deeply about how Christian leaders should respond to government’s power. But men of good conscience will disagree on this. To lay down a litmus test of fidelity to my calling on this issue is grossly irresponsible.

Biblical preaching will often intersect with issues of public debate. And it should at times stimulate public debate. But the degree to which public debate influences the nature of one’s preaching will be effected by far more than what the alarmists find alarming.

Often I’m silent because I don’t know enough about the current crisis to speak intelligently about it. But mostly I’m silent because the issues are ones on which good people differ and which do not strike at the heart of my calling to preach the gospel.

Even here, I am told that I am wrong. When World Vision some time ago first agreed to offer employment to partners in gay relationships and then immediately reversed itself, I felt that there were a couple of ways of assessing that decision from a Christian point of view. Russell Moore, however, could see only one way and stated (quoted by Justin Taylor)

At stake is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Really? That is, quite frankly, absurd. (Sometimes I wish my sense of propriety would lose its grip on me and allow me to use a stronger word. Such a comment deserves a stronger word, an expletive, even.)

Give your pastors the right to remain silent. Give them the promise of your prayers and your support. Pray that they would be wise and courageous. Be there when they preach, love them in their brokenness, and accept their gentle shepherding. But don’t demand that they follow the alarmist herd.

A helpful take on the recent flare up in Muslim relations with America by Brian McClaren.

In recent days, we’ve seen how irresponsible Muslim media outlets used the tawdry 13-minute video created by a tiny handful of fringe Christian extremists to create a disgusting caricature of all Christians – and all Americans – in Muslim minds. But too few Americans realize how frequently American Christian media personalities in the U.S. similarly prejudice their hearers’ minds with mirror-image stereotypes of Muslims.

I encourage reading the whole.

The tragic shooting in Aurora, CO precipitated predictable responses. Those who have long been in favor of limiting access to firearms returned their arguments to public attention, and those wanting to protect access resumed their defense of the 2nd Amendment. In this debate, conservative Christians typically align themselves with the “defend freedom” rhetoric of those defending open access to guns instead of with the “protect life” rhetoric of those wanting to limit that access. I find this a peculiar irony.

Regardless of the truth or falsehood of the refrain “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” the fact is that people are still getting killed. Would not logic suggest that those who in every other way bill themselves as ‘pro-life’ would be taking the lead in finding ways to reduce the the numbers of those getting killed, whether by guns or people wielding guns?

I am not proposing that the answer to any of this is stricter gun control legislation, although I’m willing to entertain arguments that suggest that. What I am puzzling over is how the abstract idea of ‘freedom’, an obscure notion in Scripture, became something which animates Christians more than that of preserving life, for which we have a commandment. No doubt Old Testament homeowners chafed under the legal demand for a parapet as an infringement upon their freedom. But the “pro-life” link would be clear to them.

As David Brooks wisely noted in his NY Times column, legislation is not the answer to something as tragic as what happened in Aurora. But in the bigger argument over the relationship between “rights” and “life” I question the pro-life consistency when Christians automatically elevate the former over the latter.

In Manatee County, Florida, years ago a man running for an open spot on the local Mosquito Control Board (yes, there really is such a thing) adopted a convenient nickname to use in his advertising in order to help his chances for election. He gave himself the name ‘Skeeter’. The board of elections was not amused and disallowed its use on the ballot.

(I don’t make these things up.)

Election to political office has to be tough, especially when one’s gifts may lie elsewhere than in the art of campaigning. And so I understand that name recognition often means the difference between victory and defeat. I confess that I really know of no one running for Seminole County judge other than the guy billing himself as “Big” Hass on his campaign posters. And I only know one name of those running for the state legislature in nearby Orange County and that is a guy whose placards refer to him as “Coach P”.

I understand that in the drive to get elected these names are effective. But in the drive to have respect in office, won’t such names get in the way? Knowing nothing of the qualities of these candidates or their opponents, I really don’t want a judge named “Big” Hass or a legislator named “Coach P”.

I might, however, have gone for “Skeeter” on the Mosquito Control Board.