Something Funny

Courtesy of one of my classes at Denver Seminary, I just thought this picture was funny. I've also heard that guilt isn't a good long-term motivator. But we live in a culture of hedonism and slothfulness, so how exactly do we motivate people?

Self-Censorship

When I was in college, a college thespian group was putting on a play called Corpus Christi, which portrayed Jesus and his disciples as gay. Many fundamentalist Christians came and protested the play. The fundamentalists weren't well-received by the university community, and were accused in the student papers as promoters of "hate speech." But the play didn't just offend the founder of their religion, it offended who Christians and the Bible claim as God himself. But one thing the fundamentalists didn't do? They didn't blow anybody up. The same cannot be said of fundamentalist Muslims, who regularly threaten violence so that the West will self-censor in cowardice. The economist quips:

Protecting free expression will often require hurting the feelings of individuals or groups; equally the use of free speech should be tempered by a sense of responsibility. But that sense should not serve as a disguise for allowing extremists of any stripe to define what views can or cannot be aired.

(On a side-note, self-censorship isn't just a temptation in relation to radical Islam, apparently Russia has a tough time not killing courageous journalists.)

I know it's trendy for some "enlightened evangelicals" to rip on fundamentalist Christianity, and it's also trendy to rip on America for its many social evils. But if for the 1st Amendment alone, we are a more moral country than any contemporary who doesn't have a similar law in its constitution. Case in point: our fundamentalist Christians don't blow people up, they use the spoken or written word to disagree (there's also some inherent ethical issues of why our religions are different, but I don't have time to discuss that right now).

In sum, self-censorship is done at the peril of free speech. It isn't laudable to be tolerant- accepting of all viewpoints. It's laudable to stand for truth. As long as free speech is restricted or self-censored, truth will suffer. And here's a truth to end on: it's wrong to unsoliticously kill people.

Just Like that Last Post

On Inauguration day, I was sitting at my church watching the tv coverage. I was eating lunch while they were showing Obama's parade and walk down Pennsylvania avenue. At that time, an elderly man whom I know well at church came in. He's not really that into politics, and didn't really care too much about the last election. But he's been around the block- seen the Kennedy administration, knew about Watergate, Reagan, and Bush 43. So he saw the coverage and remarked, "It's too bad they're all gonna hate him (Obama) in 4 years. They always do." And as simply as he came in he walked off. Then Ecclesiastes came to my mind, "There's nothing new under the sun." Charles Krauthammer has the same idea today:

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone. I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

This stimulus bill is almost laughable. All of the commentary I've read (liberal or conservative) is ripping this thing to shreds. There really is nothing new under the sun.

Mo Money Mo Problems

Obama is trying to get a compromise deal worked out on the Hill for this new "stimulus" package, and he wants it fast:

The president showed a flash of impatience Thursday morning, saying: "The time for talk is over. The time for action is now." Speaking in the evening to House Democrats who were holding a retreat in Williamsburg, Va., Obama warned that without swift action on the bill, "an economy that is already in crisis will be faced with catastrophe."

Obama's stance is contradictory, though, as the House Bill would only spend 21 percent of the bill in 2009 and 44 percent of the bill in 2010. A whole 35 percent of the bill wouldn't even be spent in the next two years. It seems like Mr. Obama is in an awful hurry to spend something that won't be fast. What's a couple of days to debate the biggest spending bill in history?

My dad, a very wise man, says, "Never be in a hurry to make a big purchase." Mr. Obama could sure use this wisdom. He's playing politics and using fear (something he always criticised Bush for, by the way), and trying to blame the GOP. This is irresponsible. He doesn't seem so wise at the moment.

Why I'm a Skeptic

The federal government is not good at creating jobs. I said it back in September and October when the Bush administration was misleading the American public deeper into a financial mess. Now, Obama is using this new stimulus as justification for all the wasteful spending he wants to do. I don't know why this is so hard to understand, so I'll let liberal Maureen Dowd explain why government spending and the current Obama administration is a mess. I'm a conservative because I've seen more change at the local level than I ever have at the federal level. Obama isn't change, or hope, or any other buzzword we attach to him. He's a fallen human who shows a propensity to curry power, money, and ambition. God help him, because I don't know if I'd fare much better....

Reading the Bible is Revolutionary

Plenty of people who haven't read the Bible are certain they don't believe it. Plenty of people who haven't read the Bible are convinced that it's true. Thus, my church is making the case that everyone should read the Bible. It's the most significant book for all of world history. And many in our church are reading the Bible in 90 days. Check out the coverage of this phenomenon in the Denver Post.

Saving Faith in Rural America

David Van Biema has written a piece for Time covering the lack of pastors in rural America.

This is an important piece, and it should be read with great interest. Rural communities are often left out of the news unless there's a sensational scandal or until election season. Apparently the truest Americans live on the farm (I say that in jest, but there always seems to be this grabbing for attention from both parties to farmers and blue-collar workers). But in any event, people aren't farming anymore, and they are moving to metropolitan areas. Much of Evangelicalism centers in the suburbs now. So our church literature is written for afluent people. Our church growth theories thus have a strongly Anglo bent. We don't understand the gospel because: why need something when you're rich? We don't understand the OT because so much of it (especially the Pentateuch) centers on an agrarian lifestyle. I'm not wholly sure how to take the news of pastors leaving the rural areas, but I hope the trend reverses.