"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
(Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)
I used to think, in my more individualistic/conservative days, that this Scripture was about the need to take a rest because, well, we all need it. Don't overwork, take time to worship, don't pursue the last dollar because God knows what is best for us as persons. The Sabbath is an important to a happy and balanced life in which we take care of ourselves in important ways. Spend time with God, with your family, with yourself.
Now, I still think that this is part of the Sabbath, but the more I have looked at Scripture I get the sense that this is not just a guideline for 'your best life now'. No, the Sabbath is also about how we look at the Other (as, indeed, are so many other issues). Consider these words not just to the head of the house (who likely would have read or heard it in the assembly)...it's also about a word for his family, his servants, his guests, and even his animals. The one who is the CEO of the extended family of 3500 years ago is told not just to rest for himself, but specifically that others who might work on his behalf are to rest as well.
This dramatically changes how we look at the concept of the Sabbath. While perhaps today we are not called to literally keep the Sabbath to the extreme that some Jews thought they should (cf. Matthew 12:1-14; Colossians 2:16-18), it's still a good thing to rest not just for ourselves but to give others as a break. What if we took this seriously? Would it change our shopping patterns? Change how we go and eat out for Sunday dinner? Would it change how we come home and turn on the TV for the Chiefs kickoff?
Let me say this as directly as I can: do we allow the way we consider our Sundays make it where others have to work? Sure, the Chiefs players are making huge money to play for our entertainment. But most of the service workers working to feed us or check us out at Wal-Mart on Sunday are some of the most economically fragile in our economy. They often considered the poorest, working the worst kind of shifts that likely few people want to really work. They are away from their families on days in which the rest of the family may be going to worship or are at play. But they work in order to provide for our 'day of rest'.
Doesn't this form of economic behavior go against the very spirit of the Sabbath? Might we even call it unChristian? While I don't want Blue Laws to return so that all shops and stores are closed on Sunday (as sometimes I still go out and eat or shop, or I might need to travel), Christians ought to be cognizant of their economic patterns on this day. By doing what is best for us, are we doing that which causes some form of harm (in relative terms) to our neighbor by making them work?
Sometimes we are oblivious to the needs of others. A number of years ago a church member was complaining to me about how she had invited a friend of hers to church but she could never come because she had to work on Sundays. She thought it was wrong that this woman had to work...but then she would spend her Sunday afternoons going to lunch, shopping, and even going to a movie. In other words, the things she was doing were directly leading to the conditions that made her friend have to work on a Sunday, yet she could not see this correlation.
Questions like this make us dig deep and see if we are part of the problem. It's not easy, of course...some workers like working on Sundays as they get paid more (which, again, is important for lower-wage workers), and many today think no differently about a Sunday than any other day. But for Christians who think Kingdom of God first, again the Sabbath should make us think about how we live on behalf of the Other, rather than ourselves alone.
As for me a number of years ago I stopped buying on the Sabbath as much as I could. Occasionally I will still eat out or shop or travel...but generally I try to avoid it as much as I can. I am a hypocrite in that I am not consistent in this, and I need to get better, but it's something where we can all make a difference.
After finishing this, I realized I wrote something about this three years ago. You can decide whether I wrote it better now or then.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Friday, July 22, 2016
Friday Trump rant
Ugh. New studies are showing that somewhere around 80% of white evangelical voters are backing Donald Trump. Yep, the same people who have for years talked about how we need a Godly, Christian man in the White House are now saying that they want to vote for Trump.
Look, I'm not expecting anybody to vote for Hillary in protest to this man who, for all we can see in him, has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. And I'm sure that some of these people are more afraid of Hillary and Bill Clinton and liberalism than anything else and so are more anti-Hillary than they are pro-Trump.
But...how can you vote for somebody like this? I mean, it's not that there are not other choices out there. There are dozens of other candidates who have declared, even some who are going to be on our ballots in the fall. But no, we vote for Trump. The Republicans have used white evangelicals as a steady base for years even while never actually doing anything for them...what are they really expecting Trump to be able to do for them that others (who had genuine, if sometimes misguided beliefs) have not?
Let me take a break and go scream.
I've repeated endlessly my statement that the Kingdom of God stands above and sometimes against the Kingdom of the United States. They are not equal nor similar...one relies on Godly power and righteousness, the other on military might and material wealth. And Christians are mistaken if they are expecting their primary support for one to lead to the prosperity of the other.
And haven't Christians learned everything by the last 20-30 years of the de-Christianizing of America? That the youth in our country are staying away or leaving the churches in droves should have warned us that the current politicalization of Christianity is not working. But we keep doing it, even to the point that we throw our support behind Trump.
Of all the things Christendom in America has to be ashamed of, the support of Trump has to rank near the top. Why don't we just go and admit it...we were never concerned about somebody with real values, about somebody wanting to make this a Christian country again. We just wanted power. That's it. Power. And in doing so we drag the glory of Christ through the depths of hell.
This is getting embarrassing. May God save us from ourselves.
Look, I'm not expecting anybody to vote for Hillary in protest to this man who, for all we can see in him, has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. And I'm sure that some of these people are more afraid of Hillary and Bill Clinton and liberalism than anything else and so are more anti-Hillary than they are pro-Trump.
But...how can you vote for somebody like this? I mean, it's not that there are not other choices out there. There are dozens of other candidates who have declared, even some who are going to be on our ballots in the fall. But no, we vote for Trump. The Republicans have used white evangelicals as a steady base for years even while never actually doing anything for them...what are they really expecting Trump to be able to do for them that others (who had genuine, if sometimes misguided beliefs) have not?
Let me take a break and go scream.
I've repeated endlessly my statement that the Kingdom of God stands above and sometimes against the Kingdom of the United States. They are not equal nor similar...one relies on Godly power and righteousness, the other on military might and material wealth. And Christians are mistaken if they are expecting their primary support for one to lead to the prosperity of the other.
And haven't Christians learned everything by the last 20-30 years of the de-Christianizing of America? That the youth in our country are staying away or leaving the churches in droves should have warned us that the current politicalization of Christianity is not working. But we keep doing it, even to the point that we throw our support behind Trump.
Of all the things Christendom in America has to be ashamed of, the support of Trump has to rank near the top. Why don't we just go and admit it...we were never concerned about somebody with real values, about somebody wanting to make this a Christian country again. We just wanted power. That's it. Power. And in doing so we drag the glory of Christ through the depths of hell.
This is getting embarrassing. May God save us from ourselves.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Red State, Blue State
One thing I see from my conservative friends on a regular basis is a map of America's presidential vote. The point they want us all to see is "Hey, this is really a conservative country with just a few outliers of crazy liberals out there!" The actual electoral and popular count drives them crazy..."How do we lose? The system must be rigged!"
Yet looking at a map like this I've always seen it a bit differently. Yes, in most wide-open spaces, people tend to vote more conservative, more 'Republican'. But in places where lots of people live, they tend to vote more liberal, more 'Democrat'. Why is this?
So we just got home from a family vacation to Chicago, a far different place than my small town in Kansas. I really enjoyed it, as it was such a very different place, even if I personally would not want to live there. Small town living is probably more my speed. Others decide differently, though, and that's OK...and in living in a large city, people tend to vote differently and see the world differently. And usually they vote more blue, more democrat.
Two things really stuck out to me while I was there that are illustrative of why one would vote in a more 'liberal' (i.e., more state control) fashion, making the facts plain that if you are on top of people all the time in large numbers, then you probably want a lot more control. First, when it comes to travel infrastructure, you need much more central control. We drove a little bit in Chicago...bad idea. It's not that the roads are terrible in Chicago, it's just that there are far too many cars. One time we drove late at night after a game and the roads were fine, but during the day when people travel, there are too many people trying to claim far too spots. Thus, there is a greater need for more centralized, government-led initiatives like subways and buses. While the wealthiest may be able to drive downtown and pay $35 a day for parking (as the free market allows), most people cannot afford to do that. They need to take public transport to get to work. While government trains and buses may not always be the most efficient means of getting this done, they generally work well when they are funded and run in appropriate ways. Those who live in large cities can see this, while those of us in small towns (where driving is much easier) have a lot harder time understanding why there is such a need. Just go to a large city, though, and one sees its need.
A second way to see this difference is in how we view guns. Most of my family and friends in small towns see guns not as only a right, but perhaps as necessary. Live in the country and you need them to shoot at wild animals, and one might need them for self-defense as law enforcement may be quite a ways away. But live in a city, in which there thousands or even tens of thousands all concentrated in a tiny area, and loose gun laws simply don't work. Actually, let me put it differently...lots of guns in a small region with lots of people do not work, just like having too many cars on too few roads. Gun laws have tried eliminating guns, to little effect, and this is why there are still so many shootings in large cities even though there are laws. Even against the law, guns still infiltrate these communities, lead to shootings, and make it seem like cities are dangerous places. Removing all guns still will not eliminate murders...Cain killed Abel with a rock, after all. But removing the worst of them, or at least making sure they are locked away or giving strong penalties or insurance rates to those who hold onto them will eliminate some, if not many of the problems that are associated with mass proliferation of weaponry.
Maybe the differences in our country is a reason why limited federal control is actually a good thing...having a 'one size fits all' policy on guns or infrastructure or many other elements may not be helpful. Let states and counties decide what fits best for their place. This is not absolute, of course...some of the worst excesses of both sides (institutional racism on the right, extra tight economic or social controls on the left) cannot be allowed to stand. But in a nation of 300 million people, it's hard to figure out the right balance of these things unless you are on the ground and experiencing them for yourself.
Yet looking at a map like this I've always seen it a bit differently. Yes, in most wide-open spaces, people tend to vote more conservative, more 'Republican'. But in places where lots of people live, they tend to vote more liberal, more 'Democrat'. Why is this?
So we just got home from a family vacation to Chicago, a far different place than my small town in Kansas. I really enjoyed it, as it was such a very different place, even if I personally would not want to live there. Small town living is probably more my speed. Others decide differently, though, and that's OK...and in living in a large city, people tend to vote differently and see the world differently. And usually they vote more blue, more democrat.
Two things really stuck out to me while I was there that are illustrative of why one would vote in a more 'liberal' (i.e., more state control) fashion, making the facts plain that if you are on top of people all the time in large numbers, then you probably want a lot more control. First, when it comes to travel infrastructure, you need much more central control. We drove a little bit in Chicago...bad idea. It's not that the roads are terrible in Chicago, it's just that there are far too many cars. One time we drove late at night after a game and the roads were fine, but during the day when people travel, there are too many people trying to claim far too spots. Thus, there is a greater need for more centralized, government-led initiatives like subways and buses. While the wealthiest may be able to drive downtown and pay $35 a day for parking (as the free market allows), most people cannot afford to do that. They need to take public transport to get to work. While government trains and buses may not always be the most efficient means of getting this done, they generally work well when they are funded and run in appropriate ways. Those who live in large cities can see this, while those of us in small towns (where driving is much easier) have a lot harder time understanding why there is such a need. Just go to a large city, though, and one sees its need.
A second way to see this difference is in how we view guns. Most of my family and friends in small towns see guns not as only a right, but perhaps as necessary. Live in the country and you need them to shoot at wild animals, and one might need them for self-defense as law enforcement may be quite a ways away. But live in a city, in which there thousands or even tens of thousands all concentrated in a tiny area, and loose gun laws simply don't work. Actually, let me put it differently...lots of guns in a small region with lots of people do not work, just like having too many cars on too few roads. Gun laws have tried eliminating guns, to little effect, and this is why there are still so many shootings in large cities even though there are laws. Even against the law, guns still infiltrate these communities, lead to shootings, and make it seem like cities are dangerous places. Removing all guns still will not eliminate murders...Cain killed Abel with a rock, after all. But removing the worst of them, or at least making sure they are locked away or giving strong penalties or insurance rates to those who hold onto them will eliminate some, if not many of the problems that are associated with mass proliferation of weaponry.
Maybe the differences in our country is a reason why limited federal control is actually a good thing...having a 'one size fits all' policy on guns or infrastructure or many other elements may not be helpful. Let states and counties decide what fits best for their place. This is not absolute, of course...some of the worst excesses of both sides (institutional racism on the right, extra tight economic or social controls on the left) cannot be allowed to stand. But in a nation of 300 million people, it's hard to figure out the right balance of these things unless you are on the ground and experiencing them for yourself.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Hillary, her haters, and my vote
So this week Hillary Clinton was declined to be prosecuted for not getting her email server security up to snuff. Her haters have been having a field day with this...'If she were anybody else she'd be in jail right now!', even though the FBI director is a Republican appointment and has nothing to lose by going after her. I get the hatred, though...25 years of the Clintons, and it seems like they keep getting away with stuff. Whitewater, Monica, Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi...forget Reagan, these are truly the teflon presidents! Clinton fatigue has already set in, and she's not even president yet.
Of course, once again we have a situation in which people are outraged because they things they have been told on Breitbart or Fox News or Rush Limbaugh have once again been false. They have a sense of reality that is not really real, and so they believe that the system is rigged. But just as you may have a right to your own opinion but not your own facts, so also you do not get to believe absolutely that your view of the world must be so.
What's funny about this is that different polls have been done asking essentially, "Do you believe that a leader sometimes needs to break the rules to get things done?" And almost universally Trump supporters say yes, even as they are screaming for Hillary to go to jail. Hillary broke rules about the proper protocols for her email servers...shouldn't conservatives be praising her for going outside Big Government rules? In the end, this is a about 2 (1-10 scale) in the world of real scandals. The Donald smashes that number each week.
Yet this week has also made me realize something...as much as I despise Donald Trump, and think that Hillary Clinton in a vacuum would be a decent president (though I think she's too much of a hawk and is too close to big business), I just can't support her. This week was a preview of what the next four years is going to look like with a Hillary presidency...scandal after perceived scandal after near scandal. If this presidency is a rerun of Bill Clinton's presidency, it's a wonder that anything can get done between all the damage control. 2020 would likely be set up to be a Republican landslide.
So, who will I vote for? Four years ago I declined to vote since this is the reddest of red states. But this year I think there's a chance that many of the right-wing policies of Brownback and the Koch Brothers in Kansas may get beaten...mostly I will vote for non-incumbents, meaning Democrats since they are about the only options in most elections (though I'm not a big fan of the party). Yet for Presidency, there are many options...and at this point I am leaning towards Gary Johnson & William Weld, the Libertarian ticket. Generally I am sympathetic towards libertarianism (when it doesn't go crazy with free market economics and nakedly support the wealth class), and they have a chance to make a real difference this election. They still won't win...but it would be nice to not have to support the lesser of two evils.
Of course, once again we have a situation in which people are outraged because they things they have been told on Breitbart or Fox News or Rush Limbaugh have once again been false. They have a sense of reality that is not really real, and so they believe that the system is rigged. But just as you may have a right to your own opinion but not your own facts, so also you do not get to believe absolutely that your view of the world must be so.
What's funny about this is that different polls have been done asking essentially, "Do you believe that a leader sometimes needs to break the rules to get things done?" And almost universally Trump supporters say yes, even as they are screaming for Hillary to go to jail. Hillary broke rules about the proper protocols for her email servers...shouldn't conservatives be praising her for going outside Big Government rules? In the end, this is a about 2 (1-10 scale) in the world of real scandals. The Donald smashes that number each week.
Yet this week has also made me realize something...as much as I despise Donald Trump, and think that Hillary Clinton in a vacuum would be a decent president (though I think she's too much of a hawk and is too close to big business), I just can't support her. This week was a preview of what the next four years is going to look like with a Hillary presidency...scandal after perceived scandal after near scandal. If this presidency is a rerun of Bill Clinton's presidency, it's a wonder that anything can get done between all the damage control. 2020 would likely be set up to be a Republican landslide.
So, who will I vote for? Four years ago I declined to vote since this is the reddest of red states. But this year I think there's a chance that many of the right-wing policies of Brownback and the Koch Brothers in Kansas may get beaten...mostly I will vote for non-incumbents, meaning Democrats since they are about the only options in most elections (though I'm not a big fan of the party). Yet for Presidency, there are many options...and at this point I am leaning towards Gary Johnson & William Weld, the Libertarian ticket. Generally I am sympathetic towards libertarianism (when it doesn't go crazy with free market economics and nakedly support the wealth class), and they have a chance to make a real difference this election. They still won't win...but it would be nice to not have to support the lesser of two evils.
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
My Presidents
My father recently said that Obama was the worst president of his lifetime. I wanted to answer back and say, no he's not. But then again, now that he is retired, he has a lot of time to watch his Fox News and be told that everyday. Combined with the common sense of historical lack of perspective we all have that leads us to hyperbole (e.g. "This is the BEST movie I've ever seen!" "I've never had a worse experience in my life"), I can see how he thinks that. But he's wrong.
And so, who are the best and worst presidents of my lifetime? Let's see.
-Richard Nixon. This is a tough one, because I was just a baby. His Presidency was overshadowed by Watergate, but it's interesting that he was overwhelmingly elected both times, beating Humphrey big and then absolutely crushing McGovern in 1972. So until Watergate, people liked him and must have thought he was doing a good job. He was getting out of Vietnam, the economy wasn't in terrible shape yet (though the recessions that followed into the early 80s were probably his fault, at least somewhat), and we didn't get involved in more foreign excursions. He's all over the place...had he not been so thin-skinned and paranoid, he might have been a great president. Let's give him a C.
-Gerald Ford. A good man who should have stayed in Congress. Rightly pardoned Nixon, was never seen as legitimate since he only became VP when Agnew had to resign, and the economy started to tank during his Presidency. Probably ought to give him an incomplete, but 2 1/2 years was long enough for America. C-
-Jimmy Carter. A great man who was in way over his head. Recently in watching The Seventies miniseries I got the impression that he had high ideals that were incompatible with a man who must exercise that kind of power. If I were president, I probably could do no better than him...you need to get along with Congress, and he was clueless about that. He had problems to fix, and seemed incapable of doing anything. The Iranian revolution is on his watch, and he was impotent to do anything about it. The economy tanked, and Reagan became President and looked great by comparison. A D+ is as high as I can go, and likely that includes points for the good things he has done after his presidency.
-Ronald Reagan. Now we start coming to people I can remember well. He was the president when I left elementary school and when I began college. Most people would give him a solid A, but many of the things he did have started to look worse in hindsight and led to many problems we have today. He lowered taxes, but the debt began to balloon. He helped bring back American pride after the 60s and 70s, but it has led many to believe in American Exceptionalism. He got us involved in many foreign policy adventures, all in the name of freedom (Panama, Grenada, Lebanon), and this has led to many intractable problems today. He took on communism, leading to the fall of the USSR, but this change the geo-political landscape, in that instead of a few large problems, we have many more small problems today. He began in earnest the drug war, imprisoning millions of Americans. He was likely the most transformative president of my lifetime, for good and for bad. I still feel fondly about him, even as I know his many failures. I'll give him a B.
-George Bush. We forget about him, but he was likely underrated. He pulled back on some of the excesses of Reagan's conservative revolution, but in doing so he alienated conservatives ("Read my lips, no new taxes") and did not go far enough for liberals. It's hard to really judge what he did, because Reagan's effects dominated his presidency. B-.
-Bill Clinton. Like Nixon, a scandal (Monica Lewinsky/Whitewater) overwhelmed good policy actions. Clinton was the last president to lead us to a balanced government budget and he mastered the ideology of centrism. But because he could not keep his pants up, and because enough of the scandals people accused him of had some basis in fact, he was not who he could have been. B
-George W Bush. Here was a man who was the conservative Jimmy Carter in his incompetency but allowed himself into so many disastrous policies by his advisers that America is still reeling. After 9/11, he looked good standing on a pile of rubble, but it all went downhill from there. The War on Terror went out of control on his watch, and we will be suffering its effects the rest of my lifetime. One wonders about how his presidency would have gone had he not had people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney by his side. I can't give him any better than a D-.
-Barack Obama. The black president with the Muslim-sounding name. He is the coolest president of my lifetime, and he could have been transformative. Remember those 'change' and 'hope' signs? But a combination of a hostile Congress and screaming conservative element gave him little hope to really get a lot done. He should have taken on the bankers and the huge corporations some more, but they had bought too many representatives and senators to make this possible. I sometimes feel he should have been more ambitious, but perhaps he did the best he could with what he had. The economy has stayed OK, we've not been involved in a lot more foreign wars (though we've been drone-striking terrorists), and social change has continued to progress. He's not the best president, but he's not the worst, either. B-.
And so, who are the best and worst presidents of my lifetime? Let's see.
-Richard Nixon. This is a tough one, because I was just a baby. His Presidency was overshadowed by Watergate, but it's interesting that he was overwhelmingly elected both times, beating Humphrey big and then absolutely crushing McGovern in 1972. So until Watergate, people liked him and must have thought he was doing a good job. He was getting out of Vietnam, the economy wasn't in terrible shape yet (though the recessions that followed into the early 80s were probably his fault, at least somewhat), and we didn't get involved in more foreign excursions. He's all over the place...had he not been so thin-skinned and paranoid, he might have been a great president. Let's give him a C.
-Gerald Ford. A good man who should have stayed in Congress. Rightly pardoned Nixon, was never seen as legitimate since he only became VP when Agnew had to resign, and the economy started to tank during his Presidency. Probably ought to give him an incomplete, but 2 1/2 years was long enough for America. C-
-Jimmy Carter. A great man who was in way over his head. Recently in watching The Seventies miniseries I got the impression that he had high ideals that were incompatible with a man who must exercise that kind of power. If I were president, I probably could do no better than him...you need to get along with Congress, and he was clueless about that. He had problems to fix, and seemed incapable of doing anything. The Iranian revolution is on his watch, and he was impotent to do anything about it. The economy tanked, and Reagan became President and looked great by comparison. A D+ is as high as I can go, and likely that includes points for the good things he has done after his presidency.
-Ronald Reagan. Now we start coming to people I can remember well. He was the president when I left elementary school and when I began college. Most people would give him a solid A, but many of the things he did have started to look worse in hindsight and led to many problems we have today. He lowered taxes, but the debt began to balloon. He helped bring back American pride after the 60s and 70s, but it has led many to believe in American Exceptionalism. He got us involved in many foreign policy adventures, all in the name of freedom (Panama, Grenada, Lebanon), and this has led to many intractable problems today. He took on communism, leading to the fall of the USSR, but this change the geo-political landscape, in that instead of a few large problems, we have many more small problems today. He began in earnest the drug war, imprisoning millions of Americans. He was likely the most transformative president of my lifetime, for good and for bad. I still feel fondly about him, even as I know his many failures. I'll give him a B.
-George Bush. We forget about him, but he was likely underrated. He pulled back on some of the excesses of Reagan's conservative revolution, but in doing so he alienated conservatives ("Read my lips, no new taxes") and did not go far enough for liberals. It's hard to really judge what he did, because Reagan's effects dominated his presidency. B-.
-Bill Clinton. Like Nixon, a scandal (Monica Lewinsky/Whitewater) overwhelmed good policy actions. Clinton was the last president to lead us to a balanced government budget and he mastered the ideology of centrism. But because he could not keep his pants up, and because enough of the scandals people accused him of had some basis in fact, he was not who he could have been. B
-George W Bush. Here was a man who was the conservative Jimmy Carter in his incompetency but allowed himself into so many disastrous policies by his advisers that America is still reeling. After 9/11, he looked good standing on a pile of rubble, but it all went downhill from there. The War on Terror went out of control on his watch, and we will be suffering its effects the rest of my lifetime. One wonders about how his presidency would have gone had he not had people like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney by his side. I can't give him any better than a D-.
-Barack Obama. The black president with the Muslim-sounding name. He is the coolest president of my lifetime, and he could have been transformative. Remember those 'change' and 'hope' signs? But a combination of a hostile Congress and screaming conservative element gave him little hope to really get a lot done. He should have taken on the bankers and the huge corporations some more, but they had bought too many representatives and senators to make this possible. I sometimes feel he should have been more ambitious, but perhaps he did the best he could with what he had. The economy has stayed OK, we've not been involved in a lot more foreign wars (though we've been drone-striking terrorists), and social change has continued to progress. He's not the best president, but he's not the worst, either. B-.
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