I may be manufacturing some cheer, but is it possible that the Democrats will not win the White House in '08?  It seems that the liklihood of their winning is a foregone conclusion to many, especially the Democrats.  Since they sincerely believe that the Republicans cannot possibly win, then the election to focus on is the primary.  Whoever wins the nomination, wins the White House.

Is it remotely possible that the Democrats will pull out all the stops and absolutely annihilate each other in order to win the nomination?  Will they dredge up the dirt they can find on each other and rip to shreds each other's talking points?  Will they self-destruct?  One can only hope.

 There appears to be ample evidence that Nifong is guilty of something criminal in nature(http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,285998,00.html).  He's certainly guilty of abusing his authority to bully others.  In the face of the evidence, it would be fitting at least to secure an indictment against him.  Without one his indictment against three innocent Duke students would be bitter irony to the utmost.  Justice, please.

Here's my $.02 on the '08 election.  Any candidate, Democrat or Republican, who will stand up against this horrendous immigration bill, and will seriously support the defense of our borders and the enforcement of our current laws, will be overwhelmingly elected President of these United States.  Health care, taxes, the environment, abortion, and education don't mean a thing if we're not secure against the geniune threat of allowing 12,000,000 people a free pass to continue living in a country that they unlawfully invaded.  I'll wager that any thinking, normal American will vote for whichever candidate seizes the moment and takes the sensible position on this issue.  It dwarfs all other issues at this time.  Please, and I don't care who it is, somebody get serious about stopping this insane amnesty.

A former Coca-Cola employee received an eight-year sentence on a single cospiracy charge.  She conspired to steal and sell the secret formula that Coca-Cola carefully guards.  Eight years.  That's a long time.

Sandy Berger actually stole classified government documents, smuggled them out of the National Archives, intentionally destroyed them, and received community service, probabtion, and a $50,000 fine.  Apparently, the courts think that a secretary who planned on stealing Coca-Cola's formula poses a greater threat to our freedoms and public safety than a thief who abused his government privileges to steal and destroy classified documents.  Lock her away for eight years, lest she wreak more havoc on our republic.

Wow.

 Clinton clearly dropped the ball by not dealing with radical Muslims hell-bent on attacking America and its interests.  The image of the paper tiger, too timid to strike back encouraged further jihad against us.  The rearview analyses of what Clinton should have done in the face of attacks and threats against our country paint him in a pretty dim light.

Bush will likely fare as poorly.  We haven't been serious about fighting subduing terrorists.  We just captured Iranian military personnel in Iraq and our response was essentially "What is Iraq going to do about it?".  Well, those Iranians have been helping to kill U.S. service personnel.  What are we going to do about it?  In a recently declassified report, we offically admit that Arafat killed U.S. diplomats Cleo Noel and George Moore.  Yet, we still operate as if the PLO is an ally. 

When the next wave of jihadists attack us, emboldened by the paper tigers' inaction, I'm certain that the pundits will be listing the missed opportunities of the Bush administration to address the serious threats to our security.

Windbag

The elections tomorrow are anybody's guess.  No matter how they turn out, someone will have predicted it accurately and will smugly blog about it ad nauseum.  Regardless of the outcome, American Christians have a challenge set before them.

For decades we (Christians) have looked to the legislature to do our (i.e. God's) bidding for us.  In a sense, our faith and confidence has been in the US Congress, not God.  I'm not advocating political passivity, but it's high time we placed politics in its proper place--below our faith in God.

If the Democrats win one or both houses, how will that affect our faith?  If the Republicans keep one or both houses, how will that affect our faith?  Certainly, there are devoted Christians on both sides of the political spectrum praying fervently for victory tomorrow.

In Joshua, on the eve of Israel's battle with Jericho, the Lord met with Joshua.  Joshua queried whose side the Lord was on in the battle.  The Lord's reply?  "NO. I'm the Captain of the Lord's host."  In short, God was saying that He didn't care about our earthly squabbles.  Jesus told us that His kingdom is not of this world.

So, what is our challenge?  Namely, to get our eyes off the petty wranglings of man and on God.  Republicans and Democrats are generally two sides of the same filthy coin, so it may not make as much of a difference as we'd like to argue who wins tomorrow.  We survived eight Clinton years, didn't we?  Our challenge is to get busy building God's kingdom, which is not the United States.

 

What is wrong with what Charles Roberts did to those Amish schoolgirls? Questions such as this should end the argument concerning moral absolutes, shouldn't they? Clearly, the Amish massacre is an extreme example, but moral absolutes are about the extremes of human behavior. There are things that people simply shouldn’t do, regardless of how much temptation there is to do them and regardless of how many people have done them.

Most of us have probably lied at some point in our lives. We tried to get out of a punishment as a child, or told Grandma that we loved the avocado-colored sweater, or we brazenly told the movie ticket vendor that our small thirteen year-old was really eleven in order to save $2.50. Simply because lying is a practice that is almost universally shared, that doesn’t shift its place from the “wrong” column of human behavior to the “right” column.

The bottom line of this example is that deception is wrong. When a child lies to avoid punishment, we are disappointed that he didn’t take responsibility for his actions. As much as we’d like to spare Grandma’s feelings, we could politely suggest that the sweater simply “isn’t my color” and that it will probably be passed on to someone who would wear it more often. Selling our integrity for $2.50, and demonstrating that to our child, is pathetic. We can cite examples where it seems that lying is the best course of action, but the courage to tell the truth, as hard as that can be, is commendable.

Back to Charles Roberts. Is there anyone who can justify his actions? Is it always and everywhere wrong to tie up Amish schoolgirls with the apparent intent to sexually molest them and the ultimate goal to kill them? What if by not doing so, he was suppressing his freedom to express himself sexually? Okay, so not everyone wants to do that, but Charles Roberts isn’t everyone, and who are we to judge what he finds to be normative and acceptable behavior? Who appointed the moral police who state that his fetish is wrong? Maybe those girls wanted him to do those things to them…we don’t know because we didn’t ask them. Those arguments fall flat, don’t they?

But, those are the same arguments people use to justify other wrong behavior. It was okay to starve Terry Schiavo because her husband needed to move on with his life, and besides, maybe she would have wanted it that way. It’s okay to terminate a pregnancy, because the unborn child is deformed, unwanted, destined to poverty, unloved, male, female, or inconvenient at the moment. No one bothers to check with the baby whether or not he wants to chance the normal pain of living for the opportunity to simply live.

What Charles Roberts did to those innocent girls was wrong. It was wrong because murder is wrong. Murder is wrong because there are certain unalienable rights granted by the Creator, including the right to life, liberty, and happiness. Those are not rights that are arbitrarily assigned according to the standards of a specific society. Our sense of moral absolutes flows from our understanding of a morally absolute Being—namely, God.

If there is no God, then my behavior has no restraint other than what I exercise. If there is no God, there is no one to judge my behavior. Societal norms have no absolute authority over human behavior. Human behavior fails to generate moral absolutes. Without God there is nothing to hinder the next Charles Roberts. He has nothing to fear, no eternal repercussions to consider, and no immediate reason to delay his gratification, regardless of what form that may take.

That is a chilling prospect, but it is the conclusion of the moral relativists. Post-modernity has dropped the quaint notion of any moral absolutes. Conflicting truths are not morally equivalent, they are irrelevant. From this morally bankrupt position, it is rather difficult to make a case against Charles Roberts. Those who demand no absolutes should be made to argue the case for Charles Roberts, for he is this week’s poster child for their cause.

Windbag

 

Having others agree with you is a sensation like no other. It’s nice when people agree with you. The whole concept of belonging to a group offers comfort, security, and purpose to the human experience. Imagine how lonely Noah must have felt, being the only one in his neighborhood to be building a boat and luring exotic livestock into it.

Denominations are good examples of people who seek to belong to something bigger than themselves. The shared theology and worldview offer affirmation that they are on the right path. Scripture is interpreted in a mostly uniform way, current events are construed similarly, and values and goals are largely shared. Look at any given church on a Sunday morning and notice the price range of the cars in the lot. Most probably fall within a particular demographic category.

There’s really nothing wrong with that. People tend to gravitate towards others who are like them. It isn’t a result of xenophobia, it’s natural and comfortable. New things are exciting, but familiar is…well, familiar.

In our post-modern world, where self is worshipped, the Internet offers a pulpit from which one may preach. Websites such as MySpace and Yahoo provide subscribers personal web pages to post their philosophies, blogs, pictures, and virtually anything else they care to share with the world. As much information as one desires can be posted, weighed between the ego and desire for safety of the poster. “God” is able to reveal as much or little as he desires with the click of a button. Forget the messy process of divine revelation that may get botched in translation.

The Internet also provides the scripture from which to preach whatever message “God” wants to be heard. You can prove almost anything you want by googling a phrase and parsing together sound bytes from sources as reliable or insane as you care to believe. Intelligent design is a myth. Evolution is a myth. There are roughly 460,000,000 (that’s just shy of one-half billion) web pages that mention ID or evolution. Good luck researching that topic.

Just as the Bible admonishes us to be discerning and not believe every crazy doctrine that comes rolling down the road, we must be careful to be able to distinguish between lunatic fringe rants and reality. Possible and probable are worlds apart. Is it possible that the government was behind 9-11? Remotely so, yes. Probably so, no. Is it possible that Oswald was the front man for a larger conspiracy? Remotely so, yes. Probably so, no.

The Internet offers fame or anonymity, whichever the author desires. You can be as reckless or responsible as you want to be on the Internet, and still some will believe what you post, while others dismiss your careful—or careless—research. It’s the church of the post-modern world. The congregants meet in chat rooms and in the comment sections of their favorite pastors bloggers.

There are many parallels between the church and the Internet. Witnessing? That’s called posting. Ex-communication? That’s what happens when your IP address is banned. Without stretching the point much further, the Internet seems to provide some of the experiences that Christian living and service used to provide, but at a much quicker pace. Jesus stated that His followers would become unproductive because of the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches.  Are we distracted or enriched by our time spent on the Internet?

Now, I’m not bashing the Internet. I’d be a hypocrite for posting such a statement on a website. The Internet is a wonderful tool. It’s also becoming a conduit for expressing every aspect of our human experience. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on the integrity of those who use it.

Windbag

I fired an employee this weekend.  She showed up to try to collect her last paycheck, which won't be available until payday.  Understandably annoyed and upset, she made the statement, "Some Christians you are."  How often have you heard that?

For too long, we've allowed the world to define Christianity.  For too long, we've advanced an erroneous definition by our actions.  If the world truly understood Who Christ was/is, and if we truly were a reflection of Him, would we hear as often as we do the charge made by this former employee?

The whole WWJD slogan has lost its impact.  When Charles Sheldon penned "In His Steps" and advanced the notion that Christians should live their lives based on the answer to the question, it was inspiring and challenging.  I've seen homeless people (we used to call them bums) wearing the WWJD bracelets.  They know how to guilt God's people into greasing their palms.

But seriously, what does a Christian look like?  How does he operate his business?  Raise his kids?  Shop for groceries?  Is there a godly way to buy gasoline?  We can think up an ungodly way to do it, can't we?  Why can't we think of a godly way of doing it?  Maybe it's a simple as being polite to the attendant?  Not staring at her chest while she counts the change?  Not complaining about the politicians and the Ay-rabs for making gas so expensive?

"Some Christian you are."  That's the charge usually levelled when the accuser has calculated a certain reaction that's to his advantage and the Christian doesn't jump through the hoop offered.  In short, he doesn't get a handout or a free pass on some deviant behavior.

The world often views Christians as push-overs or naively generous weaklings.  I suppose it's because of that meekness quality we're supposed to reflect.  What I've discovered is that people question Christians' faith/status when the Christians have held the accuser responsible for their behavior.  They're fired from a job where their performance isn't up to par or they're turned down for a handout and told to get a job rather than beg.  Perhaps they perform shoddy work and are offended when the customer refuses to pay until the job is completed satisfactorily.

Jesus didn't teach giving people free passes.  If that were the case, He needn't have died.  Afterall, God the Father could have given us a free pass rather than sacrifice His Son for us.  I take the charge "Some Christian you are" as a compliment.  To me it represents the fact that I've pricked the conscience of my accuser.  I've let them know that they are, and will be held, responsible for their actions.

Holding people responsible is a subtle reminder that they are ultimately responsible to God.  I don't want to be obnoxious, but it honestly doesn't bother me when I've offended somone by not allowing them to be irresponsible.  It honestly doesn't bother me if I don't fit their definition of a Christian.

I've noticed a trend in American Christianity toward aggression.  Admittedly, I have no statistics to prove this observation, but I'll wager others have noticed the same thing.

I interact with hundreds of people every day, many of whom are professing Christians.  What I've noticed in particular is the manner in which American Christians "share" their faith.  It's an in-your-face approach, very aggressive and unrelenting.  Sort of an "Yeah, I'm a Christian, what are you going to do about it?" mindset.

Christians seem to have taken the "Onward, Christian Soldiers" mantra to the level of Quiet Riot's 80's anthemn "We're Not Gonna Take It."  The spirit that Jesus Christ encouraged is missing.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us to bless those that curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who despitefully use and persecute us.  Ouch.  When is the last time you noticed American Christians doing any of those three things?

Rather, I notice Christians demanding people have a merry Christmas or vote Republican to prove their faith.  Mimicking the shallowness of our culture, we've focused on symptomatic issues, content to rant against our culture's problems.  We've forgotten that Jesus told us to teach as we go, not conquer in His name.  We can conquer in a flash of the sword; teaching takes time, patience, restraint, and integrity.

Perhaps you recognize what I've pointed out.  Perhaps you either haven't or don't agree with my observation.  Whichever category you fall into, my question still pertains to all of us.  What are we willing to endure for our faith?

There is a radical movement within Islam that desires the annihilation of Western culture.  A favorite avenue toward that goal is the beheading of their enemies.  Now there are plenty of Biblical references to beheading, but until recently, they seemed rhetorical.  Are we willing to endure beheading simply because we don't belong to a particular group?  At what point do we submit to martydom?

I'm not talking about the self-proclaimed "martyrs," who strap explosives to themselves, seeking to take out as many "infidels" as possible.  I'm talking about true martyrs.  People who obey laws--even silly, right-infringing ones, love others more than self, and boldly (not obnoxiously) exalt Jesus Christ as the only hope for our sinful nature.

Mock and scorn me for exercising my 2nd amendment rights, for believing that life begins at conception, or for rejecting evolution, that's fine.  I'll even spar a few rhetorical rounds with you on those, but God forbid (hasn't He already?) that I pick up a sword to promote His Kingdom or defend my faith.

It may be that radical Islam overtakes the world.  If God wills that, how will I fare?  Will I lay down my sword and bear my cross?  What would indict enemies such as those?  May I suggest that our testimony is strengthened more by submission than a battle?

Windbag

This introductory posting should, I suppose, be a zinger, prompting any reader to instantly add this blog to his favorites list.  Since that's not likely to be the case, I'll simply lay out the near and dear issues that I'll be blogging on from time to time.

As a Christian, I'm constantly challenged to interpret this world's events through the lens of Christianity and to gauge my reactions to those events in the same light.  There are times when the fleshly, practical reaction is inappropriate, although tempting.  Turning the other cheek isn't easy or pleasant.  Returning blessings for curses isn't easy.

As a parent, the world into which my children are headed concerns me.  Raising my children with a Christian worldview is vital.  I must provide them an example of how to put others' interests in front of mine when it advances the kingdom of God.

With these backdrops ever present, I am passionate about politics.  I try to focus on principles and ideologies, not personalities when assessing the political culture in our great country.  My overwhelming opinion of Democrats and Republicans is that they are two sides of the same filthy coin.

I don't have a precise agenda or even a vague idea of how I'm going to proceed here.  Whether I'm going to pick headlines to comment on or just post random thoughts I haven't decided.  Certainly by the time I've posted a few times a style will emerge.  Hopefully, it will be worth the effort.

Thanks to www.Townhall.com  for providing this service.  I wish them the best of success.

Windbag