Today is the election for the Alabama U.S. senator in which an accused pedophile with a history of being removed from office multiple times will likely defeat a former federal prosecutor with a history of putting away Klansmen because he has R after his name instead of D. And, as voters know, this means they are true to the Constitution, live with integrity, and are specially blessed by God, while the other team hates God, hates America, and hates everything good.
It amazes me how far our national intelligence and morality have plummeted in recent years, and this is just one of many examples. I mean, when GOP now stands for 'Groping Or Perving', there's a problem. Yes, I know...BOTH SIDES are wrong. But at least the Democrats and liberals seem to be exiling their failures even as the GOP is intent on building them up higher and denying that they did anything wrong.
(Take a breath. Look at your own plank. Realize that these problems are bigger than you. Now, continue.)
It's so easy to point out all the problems with our world...but to be honest, I am at a point that I have no idea (except the power of God) how to make things better. The other day I figured out what my problem is...I know exactly what is wrong with something, I know how systems work, and I can see patterns. But making something good out of it? I'm not your man.
So I was watching my daughter and her team play basketball, and it became very apparent that there were a lot of problems with their plan...they were not setting screens, the guards were not passing into the bigs, and they were not communicating on either defense or offense. I could see all their problems...maybe I would be a good scout for a sports team, as I can always see the problems and what is being done.
But, like a lot of Americans, I'm really bad about figuring out how to make things better. I can yell and scream and point fingers, but fixing the problem, and building up my fellow man? Nope. This is why for all my morbid interest in politics, I have never had any desire to run for any public office except for the anointing of Dictator. It's why I'm not a great coach...I can see what is going on, but I can't make the kids do what I want them to do in my mind. It's why I stink at video games...I can figure out all the patterns within the game, but I don't have the ability to exploit them.
Maybe our world is just too complicated today to make a difference in. We'd rather just tear things and people down than build it up to something good.
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Weinstein, et al
The news continues to be depressing. Currently, amidst the slog that is Trump, health and environmental warnings, and the Royals beginning their long generational slide into the abyss, we have a huge sexual harassment scandal in which a high-ranking Hollywood executive has lost his power and influence after decades of terrible behavior. The fallout is that scores of other spotlighted people are being dragged through this...Kevin Spacey propositioned a teenager many years ago, Andy Dick licks people, and George Bush the senior acts like a dirty old man. It's sad, really, even though hopefully the public shaming will hopefully people putting a stop to terrible behavior. As a dad, I pray that my daughter will never have to go through what many women through the ages have endured.
Yet I can't help think that this is yet another story in which the chickens have come home to roost. Men have always behaved badly, I suppose...in the Bible Xerxes gets his XXX rating by plowing through a whole generation of women looking for a replacement wife, and things haven't gotten much better in the years since Celebrities and powerbrokers have always gotten away with bad behavior...how many of the legendary Wilt Chamberlain's 20,000 supposed lays were not consensual? Heck, we have a sitting president who made some of his reputation as horny business mogul who would brag about grabbing a woman's 'p****' when she was not expecting it or walking in on teenagers getting dressed in beauty pageants. Sexuality has been glorified as the right of the powerful, and now with western equality being our god, everyone else as well. With glorification, abuse will soon follow on its heels.
As always, we want all the pleasures of sexuality without any of its drawbacks. Will we continue to celebrate all the glories of our modern sexual freedom and then continue to be so surprised when this freedom is so badly abused? Something's gotta give.
Yet I can't help think that this is yet another story in which the chickens have come home to roost. Men have always behaved badly, I suppose...in the Bible Xerxes gets his XXX rating by plowing through a whole generation of women looking for a replacement wife, and things haven't gotten much better in the years since Celebrities and powerbrokers have always gotten away with bad behavior...how many of the legendary Wilt Chamberlain's 20,000 supposed lays were not consensual? Heck, we have a sitting president who made some of his reputation as horny business mogul who would brag about grabbing a woman's 'p****' when she was not expecting it or walking in on teenagers getting dressed in beauty pageants. Sexuality has been glorified as the right of the powerful, and now with western equality being our god, everyone else as well. With glorification, abuse will soon follow on its heels.
As always, we want all the pleasures of sexuality without any of its drawbacks. Will we continue to celebrate all the glories of our modern sexual freedom and then continue to be so surprised when this freedom is so badly abused? Something's gotta give.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Grumpy Old Guy #31
I'm driving a shuttle route last night and most of the kids are fine, but a little boy, about 6, keeps standing up and jumping around in the back. Three times I have to get on the intercom, 'Sit Down!' I don't like being that guy, but kids in the aisle or standing up, that's dangerous.
So we get to the final drop-off point and as the boy is coming off I have him stand on top of the engine compartment and tell him that he has to do better sitting down, that he can't be jumping around on the bus. We're a quarter of the way through the school year, he knows this by now but he doesn't care. But then his brother, probably a year older and is waiting on him says, 'He can't sit down! He has ADHD and that's why he acts like this.'
To summarize: a seven-year-old is already making excuses for his younger brother as to why he is the way he is. Where did he learn these things? Most likely from his parents, who likewise make excuses for his unacceptable behavior. This child is likely to through life with people making excuses for him, instead of simply saying 'No, you can't do this.'
It's easy to bag on people I don't know well, but most kids really don't have ADHD. Most of them are simply over-sugared, over-caffeinated, over-stimulated, and under-disciplined. And when they act like this, everybody then looks for an excuse besides what's obvious. No wonder I have a headache.
So we get to the final drop-off point and as the boy is coming off I have him stand on top of the engine compartment and tell him that he has to do better sitting down, that he can't be jumping around on the bus. We're a quarter of the way through the school year, he knows this by now but he doesn't care. But then his brother, probably a year older and is waiting on him says, 'He can't sit down! He has ADHD and that's why he acts like this.'
To summarize: a seven-year-old is already making excuses for his younger brother as to why he is the way he is. Where did he learn these things? Most likely from his parents, who likewise make excuses for his unacceptable behavior. This child is likely to through life with people making excuses for him, instead of simply saying 'No, you can't do this.'
It's easy to bag on people I don't know well, but most kids really don't have ADHD. Most of them are simply over-sugared, over-caffeinated, over-stimulated, and under-disciplined. And when they act like this, everybody then looks for an excuse besides what's obvious. No wonder I have a headache.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Posture and Flags
So. The current national conversation is not how our President is pushing us towards war, nor how once again the Congress is trying to take away health care from the poorest amongst us, nor the horrible hurricanes hitting the gulf coast and Caribbean. Nope...it's about whether or not NFL players should stand during the national anthem. I am so glad (sarcasm) we are focusing on such important things.
Personally, I stand for the flag and the national anthem and the nation as a whole, not for the President or the Congress or anything else. I think there are other, better times for people to protest than this, and the fact that kneeling now seems to have become the 'cool' thing to do makes me suspicious. Considering how much even the wealthy NFL owners have responded negatively to Trump's statement that people who kneel during the anthem are 'sons of bitches', I know that much of what is going on is more about Trump and his persecution complex than anything.
Yet people who kneel or sit during the anthem as a protest against whatever do not bug me nearly as much as the many other ways people disrespect the flag, many actions which are actually against the federal code. This article in the Huffington Post in particular I thought was excellent.
-When dumb rednecks (most are great people, but some are morons) fly the U.S. flag beside the Confederate flag out of the back of their pickup until it is ripped mostly to shreds.
-When politicians use the flag as a lapel pin because they are afraid of what constituents will say if they don't.
-When cheap, disposable plastic flags are passed out like candy at parades even as they will loudly say that they are 'made in China'.
-When businesses use the flag to try to sell things.
-When people put writing or other symbols on the flag to get a political agenda across.
-When people wear flag-themed clothing and they do it very sloppily.
-When people combine images of the flag, screaming eagles, and other quasi-patriotic images to say something along the lines of 'America! Kneel or feel our boot in your ___!'
There are so many instances in which the flag has been abused in ways far worse than in the posture of athletes. Just when I think that our country can't get any dumber, we knock a few points off the 'ol national IQ.
Personally, I stand for the flag and the national anthem and the nation as a whole, not for the President or the Congress or anything else. I think there are other, better times for people to protest than this, and the fact that kneeling now seems to have become the 'cool' thing to do makes me suspicious. Considering how much even the wealthy NFL owners have responded negatively to Trump's statement that people who kneel during the anthem are 'sons of bitches', I know that much of what is going on is more about Trump and his persecution complex than anything.
Yet people who kneel or sit during the anthem as a protest against whatever do not bug me nearly as much as the many other ways people disrespect the flag, many actions which are actually against the federal code. This article in the Huffington Post in particular I thought was excellent.
-When dumb rednecks (most are great people, but some are morons) fly the U.S. flag beside the Confederate flag out of the back of their pickup until it is ripped mostly to shreds.
-When politicians use the flag as a lapel pin because they are afraid of what constituents will say if they don't.
-When cheap, disposable plastic flags are passed out like candy at parades even as they will loudly say that they are 'made in China'.
-When businesses use the flag to try to sell things.
-When people put writing or other symbols on the flag to get a political agenda across.
-When people wear flag-themed clothing and they do it very sloppily.
-When people combine images of the flag, screaming eagles, and other quasi-patriotic images to say something along the lines of 'America! Kneel or feel our boot in your ___!'
There are so many instances in which the flag has been abused in ways far worse than in the posture of athletes. Just when I think that our country can't get any dumber, we knock a few points off the 'ol national IQ.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Obsessed about Sex
I have a friend on Facebook with whom I went to high school with whose dad was a Methodist pastor. From what I can tell he still considers himself a Christian, but one of those modern types of Christians who would likely be unrecognizable to the orthodox believers of the last two millennia. Whenever there is a religious topic up for debate he's always ready to jump in and regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with the apostle Paul, he's always quick to jump in and say that Paul was a fool.
I've never asked him why, unfortunately...but I would suspect it has nothing to do with Paul's many words about grace or about the unity Christians need to show within the church. Rather, I'm sure it has something to do with sexuality, because I've heard from many over the years who thinks that Paul was repressed, who held to a too-limited viewpoint of what human sexuality ought to be. Thus Paul is definitely wrong, and deserves to be bashed.
It occurred to me today that many conservative Christians have spent much of their lives obsessed about sex. Many of the social forms this obsession has taken on include too much attention to how women dress, about whether or not men and women can work together or (in high-class forms) whether or not they can be even alone together at the same time if unmarried, about high-handedly putting a scarlett A on whomever breaks whatever taboos society has established, or even about regulating how often married couples can do the deed due to religious holy days.
Somewhere in my parents' lifetime, however, the question of 'who is most obsessed about sex' started to change ownership. Perhaps it began with an increasing acceptance of co-habitation or free love or whatever, but for many conservative Christians, sex has almost become a non-issue. This is wrong, because the Bible does speak of sex a lot...but the fervor for this issue has lost its steam. When Christians overwhelmingly vote for and support a man for President who is on his third marriage and has had legions of affairs through the years, you know that this battle is over...Bill Clinton's oral pleasuring in the Oval Office and the outrage is caused now seems quaint by comparison two decades later.
Today it's our liberal friends who are obsessed about sex. Whether it's a demand that all of us approve of (not just tolerate) gay marriage, or something as simple as hating Paul for calling fornication a 'sin', sex is now THE divine right for those on the left. The only prohibtions seem to be rape, incest, and pedophilia...everything else is fair game for two (or more) consenting adults (and teenagers) in the world of swiping on Tinder.
Not only are we told that must we accept any and every kind of sexual behavior, but also as a society we are told that we must accept that the consequences of that behavior are not at all related to the sex that seemed to have arrived with those troubles. Far too many children born out of wedlock? It's not sex's fault...it's not having access to birth control. Far too many STD's? It's not sex's fault...it's not having access to the right drugs. Far too many divorces and remarriages and broken families? It's not sex's fault...it's that we've tried confining people to the monotony of the family.
There will come a day when my liberal friends will need to have an honest look at where the free sex of the past 50 years has gotten us as a society. I'm convinced sex has been a very strong factor for why our society is plunging off a cliff in regards to everything wrong with it. More sex is not the answer.
I've never asked him why, unfortunately...but I would suspect it has nothing to do with Paul's many words about grace or about the unity Christians need to show within the church. Rather, I'm sure it has something to do with sexuality, because I've heard from many over the years who thinks that Paul was repressed, who held to a too-limited viewpoint of what human sexuality ought to be. Thus Paul is definitely wrong, and deserves to be bashed.
It occurred to me today that many conservative Christians have spent much of their lives obsessed about sex. Many of the social forms this obsession has taken on include too much attention to how women dress, about whether or not men and women can work together or (in high-class forms) whether or not they can be even alone together at the same time if unmarried, about high-handedly putting a scarlett A on whomever breaks whatever taboos society has established, or even about regulating how often married couples can do the deed due to religious holy days.
Somewhere in my parents' lifetime, however, the question of 'who is most obsessed about sex' started to change ownership. Perhaps it began with an increasing acceptance of co-habitation or free love or whatever, but for many conservative Christians, sex has almost become a non-issue. This is wrong, because the Bible does speak of sex a lot...but the fervor for this issue has lost its steam. When Christians overwhelmingly vote for and support a man for President who is on his third marriage and has had legions of affairs through the years, you know that this battle is over...Bill Clinton's oral pleasuring in the Oval Office and the outrage is caused now seems quaint by comparison two decades later.
Today it's our liberal friends who are obsessed about sex. Whether it's a demand that all of us approve of (not just tolerate) gay marriage, or something as simple as hating Paul for calling fornication a 'sin', sex is now THE divine right for those on the left. The only prohibtions seem to be rape, incest, and pedophilia...everything else is fair game for two (or more) consenting adults (and teenagers) in the world of swiping on Tinder.
Not only are we told that must we accept any and every kind of sexual behavior, but also as a society we are told that we must accept that the consequences of that behavior are not at all related to the sex that seemed to have arrived with those troubles. Far too many children born out of wedlock? It's not sex's fault...it's not having access to birth control. Far too many STD's? It's not sex's fault...it's not having access to the right drugs. Far too many divorces and remarriages and broken families? It's not sex's fault...it's that we've tried confining people to the monotony of the family.
There will come a day when my liberal friends will need to have an honest look at where the free sex of the past 50 years has gotten us as a society. I'm convinced sex has been a very strong factor for why our society is plunging off a cliff in regards to everything wrong with it. More sex is not the answer.
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Monuments, Statues, and Other Silly Things...
This weekend our family took a quick roadtrip that included Coronodo Heights, just north of Lindsborg, KS. Here's the backstory: in 1541, Coronado was looking for his cities of gold, and legend has it that as he climbed this little hill on the Kansas prairie he looked out and said to his friends, "Screw it, boys...it's time to go home." Almost four centuries later some transplanted Swedish scholars at the college in Lindsborg found a piece of Spanish armor on top of this hill and declared that this was where Coronado had made his fateful decision. Thus they dedicated the place to the principle of "Give Up...It's Good For You!" and built something of a castle monument on top of it that looks out over the prairie...thus the name Coronado Heights. Likely there's very little to substantiate the claims that Coronado made his decision on this hill. But it makes for a nice story and it allows tourists like me to to go up on this hill and recount some kind of vision of history, no matter how true or incomplete it may be.
I got to thinking about this today, in light of the marches and counter-marches and general forms of hand-wringing that seems to have consumed our country in recent weeks. Basically all over the south (and elsewhere) cities are bowing to pressure to remove statues that stand to honor the 'heroes' of the Confederacy, men like Robert E Lee or Stonewall Jackson. Many white southerners are very upset and have had their feelings hurt about this, claiming that this is simply whining on the part of people who don't want their own feelings hurt, that we shouldn't be 'erasing history' after all these years Proponents of taking down these statues claim on the other hand that these statues should never have been built, as they give public honor to those who rebelled against our country and supported a slave system that is immoral.
I've come to the firm belief that, while some people are overly sensitive about all things and this can turn into a slippery slope that would even take down Jefferson, Washington, and other slave-owning leaders who fall out of favor of history, it's a good thing to take down these statues. What clinched it for me was reading about how many of these statues were erected. Most were built in the 1910s and 1920s during a time in which the Ku Klux Klan was on the march in this country; Woodrow Wilson and other leading politicians were openly anti-negro (Wilson closed off much of government employment to blacks, for instance) and the impending death of the last Confederate war veterans prompted many who fondly remembered 'the good 'ol days' to build these statues as a memorial to the 'lost cause'. It was not only not politically incorrect to publicly proclaim white superiority, it was almost expected and even demanded. And so, with claims that restoring Southern Heritage was vital, these statues of heroic Confederate war heroes, always in military pose and dress, were erected.
Needless to say, blacks and other minorities did not have a say at this time...indeed, they were politically powerless to stop the building of statues. To do so would have meant great danger and even lynching...remember, Jim Crow laws were at their height during this time, and approved of people in the highest of offices in our country. And so these statues were erected, and have now stood for almost a hundred years.
But of course now we live in a different age. Racism is no longer openly accepted by most, and the rise of 'alt-right' Klansmen and Nazis brings about universal condemnation (except by the President, but that's another post). Many who still support these statues are by no means racist...they genuinely do feel that this is a part of their heritage that outsiders do not understand, and they feel that they are being singled out for ridicule and contempt. They are correct in saying that race is not only a southern problem, but a national one...indeed, many northern cities such as Chicago and Boston have faced equally challenging racial issues over the years and often have a shameful history of their own.
Yet simply crying 'Heritage!' is no longer good enough. The heritage that is being supported is naive at best and immoral at worst, because it's a form of heritage that looks back to a time in which 'blacks knew their place', a time in which southern values openly tolerated belittlement and hatred of certain people simply because of their skin color and ancestry. How on earth these things could have been considered Christian continues to amaze me; and the fact that many people still defending these things claim Jesus as Lord shows me that this blind spot is still very real. Shouldn't Christians want to break down walls of hostility rather than build them up? Shouldn't followers of Jesus Christ look to the good of others instead of their own in all things? Yet in this instance Christians have fallen woefully short of living out their faith.
I wonder what would happen if revisionist history came to inspect Coronado Heights. Again, there's very little real evidence that this hill is anything more than an interesting geological spot on an otherwise flat landscape. But what if Native American groups decided that Coronado was a villain and a thief, would we need to change the name of that hill? Would the good people of Lindsborg fight valiantly to keep that name and claim that it's about heritage?
Honestly, I doubt anybody would care that much. 5 centuries in the past is a long time, and nobody has a vested interest in keeping Coronado's name alive; remember, the people who wanted to lift up Coronado were Swedes, not Spanish. But I'm sure that somebody would fight to the end as a matter of their self-identity, and spout all kinds of foolishness and falsehood to keep the spirit of Coronado's 'heritage' alive. Maybe they would even claim the economic argument, that this place brings about tourism and jobs and other forms of what has become the conservative religion. Rather than realize that true history is dependent upon actual scholarship and truth, creating symbols that have nothing to do with reality seems to be the way many want to live out their history. People will always have a way of getting worked up about the dumbest of things.
I got to thinking about this today, in light of the marches and counter-marches and general forms of hand-wringing that seems to have consumed our country in recent weeks. Basically all over the south (and elsewhere) cities are bowing to pressure to remove statues that stand to honor the 'heroes' of the Confederacy, men like Robert E Lee or Stonewall Jackson. Many white southerners are very upset and have had their feelings hurt about this, claiming that this is simply whining on the part of people who don't want their own feelings hurt, that we shouldn't be 'erasing history' after all these years Proponents of taking down these statues claim on the other hand that these statues should never have been built, as they give public honor to those who rebelled against our country and supported a slave system that is immoral.
I've come to the firm belief that, while some people are overly sensitive about all things and this can turn into a slippery slope that would even take down Jefferson, Washington, and other slave-owning leaders who fall out of favor of history, it's a good thing to take down these statues. What clinched it for me was reading about how many of these statues were erected. Most were built in the 1910s and 1920s during a time in which the Ku Klux Klan was on the march in this country; Woodrow Wilson and other leading politicians were openly anti-negro (Wilson closed off much of government employment to blacks, for instance) and the impending death of the last Confederate war veterans prompted many who fondly remembered 'the good 'ol days' to build these statues as a memorial to the 'lost cause'. It was not only not politically incorrect to publicly proclaim white superiority, it was almost expected and even demanded. And so, with claims that restoring Southern Heritage was vital, these statues of heroic Confederate war heroes, always in military pose and dress, were erected.
Needless to say, blacks and other minorities did not have a say at this time...indeed, they were politically powerless to stop the building of statues. To do so would have meant great danger and even lynching...remember, Jim Crow laws were at their height during this time, and approved of people in the highest of offices in our country. And so these statues were erected, and have now stood for almost a hundred years.
But of course now we live in a different age. Racism is no longer openly accepted by most, and the rise of 'alt-right' Klansmen and Nazis brings about universal condemnation (except by the President, but that's another post). Many who still support these statues are by no means racist...they genuinely do feel that this is a part of their heritage that outsiders do not understand, and they feel that they are being singled out for ridicule and contempt. They are correct in saying that race is not only a southern problem, but a national one...indeed, many northern cities such as Chicago and Boston have faced equally challenging racial issues over the years and often have a shameful history of their own.
Yet simply crying 'Heritage!' is no longer good enough. The heritage that is being supported is naive at best and immoral at worst, because it's a form of heritage that looks back to a time in which 'blacks knew their place', a time in which southern values openly tolerated belittlement and hatred of certain people simply because of their skin color and ancestry. How on earth these things could have been considered Christian continues to amaze me; and the fact that many people still defending these things claim Jesus as Lord shows me that this blind spot is still very real. Shouldn't Christians want to break down walls of hostility rather than build them up? Shouldn't followers of Jesus Christ look to the good of others instead of their own in all things? Yet in this instance Christians have fallen woefully short of living out their faith.
I wonder what would happen if revisionist history came to inspect Coronado Heights. Again, there's very little real evidence that this hill is anything more than an interesting geological spot on an otherwise flat landscape. But what if Native American groups decided that Coronado was a villain and a thief, would we need to change the name of that hill? Would the good people of Lindsborg fight valiantly to keep that name and claim that it's about heritage?
Honestly, I doubt anybody would care that much. 5 centuries in the past is a long time, and nobody has a vested interest in keeping Coronado's name alive; remember, the people who wanted to lift up Coronado were Swedes, not Spanish. But I'm sure that somebody would fight to the end as a matter of their self-identity, and spout all kinds of foolishness and falsehood to keep the spirit of Coronado's 'heritage' alive. Maybe they would even claim the economic argument, that this place brings about tourism and jobs and other forms of what has become the conservative religion. Rather than realize that true history is dependent upon actual scholarship and truth, creating symbols that have nothing to do with reality seems to be the way many want to live out their history. People will always have a way of getting worked up about the dumbest of things.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
A Pox On Both Your Houses
I am so sick of America right now. Not the beauty of it, not the idea of it...but the reality of 300+ million people screaming at each other. We're still overwhelmingly wealthy but we run around bitching and moaning about everything. It's like we're tired of being happy.
We find this the most in our current political situation. On the one hand there exists Trump and his enablers in whatever remains of the 'conservative' movement. These are the people who have all the political power and are seeking to use that power only for the benefit of themselves. These people are easy to mock, though they see themselves as the virtuous persecuted moral majority. They have lost all spiritual and political credibility with many of us, but their desire to Take Back America, to Make America Great Again continues on in their self-righteous pea-brained minds. On the other hand is the 'liberal' movement. These people actually have the upper hand in the culture wars at the movement. Americans as a whole are tolerant and increasingly acceptable of all that they stand for in sexuality, in lifestyle choices, in whatever is the issue of the moment. They may have no political sense at this point beyond just screaming about how unfair the other side is, but they are winning the long game. I have no home here, either. Calling wrong right will never be right. Accepting all things, and demanding others do the same, is no way to get me on their side. Some things are simply wrong, and deserve to be called wrong.
Both sides have so much of what they want, but they're never happy, and led by the increasingly shrill ideological press telling people what they want to hear, they just get angrier and angrier. And their yelling is giving me a headache. I'm tired of both, and just once I'd like somebody who is a good solid moderate, like I still think 70% of American really are, who will speak on my behalf. Who will say,
-I don't really like big government and taxes, but we have to pay for things like roads and schools and national security so that we don't burden the future generations with our bills. Having to do stupid fundraisers so that after-school activities is not healthy. Letting our infrastructure crumble because we've had to gut the transportation budget so that we can again cut taxes is stupid. Things cost money, and squeezing these things down until government does the job poorly and then claiming that all government is inefficient and wasteful is, shall we say, moronic. Let's figure out what we need to buy, get the money to do it, and do it well. I couldn't care less about the big government vs. small government argument anymore...I just want good government.
-I accept that people may have different lifestyle choices. This is America, after all, the land of the free. I need to accept that you may live differently than I do, and though I may not like it, I can accept it. But by gosh, stop telling me that I'm a bigot if I think homosexual behavior is a sin; this is not the same thing as racial civil rights! Fine...you can be married and have all the legal rights you want, but stop telling me I have to approve of it. And stop saying I'm a Nazi if I think people should use bathrooms that their genitals suggest they should. Stop it with this politically correct nonsense that the military, a place of group cohesion above all things, has to accept everybody's individual cross-dressing choices.
-I am thankful that we still have a great social safety net in which the poorest and neediest amongst us are provided for; it's a God-given blessing to take care of some, and in fact there will always be people like this. But stop thinking I have to enable people to live lazy, fat, unhealthy lives. I'm sick of making charity calls at people's houses when they can't pay their utility bills and noticing that they have a 60" TV in the front room. They make their choices in freedom...but don't expect me to pay for them.
-I think it's great that America is a land of opportunity. Technology and entrepreneur risk allow people to become wealthy. But stop telling me that it's fair that we keep suppressing wages of the poorest amongst us even as we say that a rising tide lifts all boats. No, it doesn't. Too many people are sinking out there because tiny boats are flooded by the wakes of all the yachts. Raise the minimum wage already. If it means a billionaire has to sell a yacht once in awhile, fine. And stop with the argument, "If people on minimum wage just had more ambition, they wouldn't be on minimum wage." That's just stupid. There's a reason we don't let some people into medical school. Some people ain't smart. Some people are not good at many things. But they still have a right in the wealthiest culture in history to be able to live without worrying all the time, even if maybe we ought to make them take a personal finance course once in awhile.
Just looking at my above gripes makes me completely ineligible for public office. Somebody will call me intolerant or a libtard or think I am contradicting myself or something else...I'd be shouted down before I even got to the third line of my stump speech. But more than anything, I just can't be heard through the roar of the tumult. I'm not screaming these things out in ALT-CAPS and so my voice isn't going to be nearly as loud as the idiots that have taken to Breitbart or Vox. There's simply too much common sense for people in an ideological rage to hold onto. My political career would be over long before it started.
Yet somewhere out there somebody has enough sense to unite those of us in the middle who are sick of both sides screaming at us and making us afraid, and they can do it better than I do without offending everybody. Maybe we're too far gone, I don't know...but as it stands now, I'm just about sick of it all.
We find this the most in our current political situation. On the one hand there exists Trump and his enablers in whatever remains of the 'conservative' movement. These are the people who have all the political power and are seeking to use that power only for the benefit of themselves. These people are easy to mock, though they see themselves as the virtuous persecuted moral majority. They have lost all spiritual and political credibility with many of us, but their desire to Take Back America, to Make America Great Again continues on in their self-righteous pea-brained minds. On the other hand is the 'liberal' movement. These people actually have the upper hand in the culture wars at the movement. Americans as a whole are tolerant and increasingly acceptable of all that they stand for in sexuality, in lifestyle choices, in whatever is the issue of the moment. They may have no political sense at this point beyond just screaming about how unfair the other side is, but they are winning the long game. I have no home here, either. Calling wrong right will never be right. Accepting all things, and demanding others do the same, is no way to get me on their side. Some things are simply wrong, and deserve to be called wrong.
Both sides have so much of what they want, but they're never happy, and led by the increasingly shrill ideological press telling people what they want to hear, they just get angrier and angrier. And their yelling is giving me a headache. I'm tired of both, and just once I'd like somebody who is a good solid moderate, like I still think 70% of American really are, who will speak on my behalf. Who will say,
-I don't really like big government and taxes, but we have to pay for things like roads and schools and national security so that we don't burden the future generations with our bills. Having to do stupid fundraisers so that after-school activities is not healthy. Letting our infrastructure crumble because we've had to gut the transportation budget so that we can again cut taxes is stupid. Things cost money, and squeezing these things down until government does the job poorly and then claiming that all government is inefficient and wasteful is, shall we say, moronic. Let's figure out what we need to buy, get the money to do it, and do it well. I couldn't care less about the big government vs. small government argument anymore...I just want good government.
-I accept that people may have different lifestyle choices. This is America, after all, the land of the free. I need to accept that you may live differently than I do, and though I may not like it, I can accept it. But by gosh, stop telling me that I'm a bigot if I think homosexual behavior is a sin; this is not the same thing as racial civil rights! Fine...you can be married and have all the legal rights you want, but stop telling me I have to approve of it. And stop saying I'm a Nazi if I think people should use bathrooms that their genitals suggest they should. Stop it with this politically correct nonsense that the military, a place of group cohesion above all things, has to accept everybody's individual cross-dressing choices.
-I am thankful that we still have a great social safety net in which the poorest and neediest amongst us are provided for; it's a God-given blessing to take care of some, and in fact there will always be people like this. But stop thinking I have to enable people to live lazy, fat, unhealthy lives. I'm sick of making charity calls at people's houses when they can't pay their utility bills and noticing that they have a 60" TV in the front room. They make their choices in freedom...but don't expect me to pay for them.
-I think it's great that America is a land of opportunity. Technology and entrepreneur risk allow people to become wealthy. But stop telling me that it's fair that we keep suppressing wages of the poorest amongst us even as we say that a rising tide lifts all boats. No, it doesn't. Too many people are sinking out there because tiny boats are flooded by the wakes of all the yachts. Raise the minimum wage already. If it means a billionaire has to sell a yacht once in awhile, fine. And stop with the argument, "If people on minimum wage just had more ambition, they wouldn't be on minimum wage." That's just stupid. There's a reason we don't let some people into medical school. Some people ain't smart. Some people are not good at many things. But they still have a right in the wealthiest culture in history to be able to live without worrying all the time, even if maybe we ought to make them take a personal finance course once in awhile.
Just looking at my above gripes makes me completely ineligible for public office. Somebody will call me intolerant or a libtard or think I am contradicting myself or something else...I'd be shouted down before I even got to the third line of my stump speech. But more than anything, I just can't be heard through the roar of the tumult. I'm not screaming these things out in ALT-CAPS and so my voice isn't going to be nearly as loud as the idiots that have taken to Breitbart or Vox. There's simply too much common sense for people in an ideological rage to hold onto. My political career would be over long before it started.
Yet somewhere out there somebody has enough sense to unite those of us in the middle who are sick of both sides screaming at us and making us afraid, and they can do it better than I do without offending everybody. Maybe we're too far gone, I don't know...but as it stands now, I'm just about sick of it all.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Evangelism and Bible Study
This one will be unpopular. Hold on.
The opening line in any Church of Christ evangelistic move is always the same: "Would you like to have a Bible study?" Throughout my life I have acquired dozens, if not hundreds, of pamphlets that all center on a study of the Scriptures in order to bring somebody to the point of baptism. Though they all have their quirks, all jump from Scripture to Scripture along this journey. This was how I was trained to do 'personal work', to bring people to Christ.
As I have gotten older, however, I am finding that this is not the best method for today. Quite simply, in my opinion beginning with Bible sutdy focuses far more on the head, about finding out about Christ and about the church than it does on the heart, in which somebody follows Jesus.
It's not that I think Bible study is bad...far from it. But I do wonder whether or not we should rather focus upon Bible study more after somebody is baptized rather than when somebody is simply learning God's will for the first time. Because my experience is that learning to be a genuine follower of Jesus Christ is not so much about knowing all the right things to know, but rather a heart that loves Jesus and sees his impact in the lives of other believers. Isn't this what Hebrews 1:1-2 is saying about how God speaks to people today, or how John 1:1-5 speaks of Jesus as being the 'word' of God? Most of the people I have had the honor to baptize in my life chose to be baptized not because of a perfect kind of head knowledge, but rather because they had seen in me (and in others) the power of a changed, sanctified life. Later on they would study Scripture and want to know more detail of what that life looks like...but I wonder whether or not we have baptized a lot of heads and not so much their hearts.
Here's an example: many of the pamphlets I have looked at will have a long section about the need for the church. And that's absolutely right...the church is the body of Christ, and a new (or any) Christian cannot hope to thrive or grow without the church. But most pamphlets will speak about the church: the 'qualifications' of elders, what makes God happy in worship (prayer, the Lord's Supper, giving, Bible study, and especially non-instrumental music), and perhaps, in some of the more modern ones, the need for love. Yet again, while these things might be right in their teaching, often they do little to really draw somebody into the church. If a preacher or a church member has a private Bible study with somebody and that person is then baptized, most often to this point there has been little or no real contact with the church. No chance to see it as a place of love, fellowship, and good works. It's no wonder, then, that many new Christians quickly fall away from the church, because they never had a chance to know it!
Another problem with these kinds of studies is that many people today are not so willing to follow along the proof-text path. One might bring up a subject like the inspiration of Scripture...and usually most studies will jump straight towards 2 Timothy 3:16-17 or 2 Peter 1:20-21. Fair enough, this is how I was taught and I believe these truths. But then there are questions...reading the context, these Scriptures are speaking of the Old Testament, not the New, what then? Or should we immediately accept the statements from Scripture itself about its inspiration? Don't all religious texts (the Quran, the Book of Mormon, etc.) do this to some extent? Quickly this leads us down a path of subjects that many even faithful Christians do not know about. Simply following along the old paths that many were trained with are no longer enough.
I am more convinced than ever that evangelism, in this day and age, is not easy, but it is possible if we will allow time for people to see the life of Jesus within us. But we're not usually ready for that...we'd rather have them buy our understanding of things, and shake the dust off of our feet when they are not so ready to accept it.
We are Bible-believing Christians, but first and foremost we ought to be Jesus-following disciples. If we really live like this, people will be able to see him in us and that will make all the difference.
The opening line in any Church of Christ evangelistic move is always the same: "Would you like to have a Bible study?" Throughout my life I have acquired dozens, if not hundreds, of pamphlets that all center on a study of the Scriptures in order to bring somebody to the point of baptism. Though they all have their quirks, all jump from Scripture to Scripture along this journey. This was how I was trained to do 'personal work', to bring people to Christ.
As I have gotten older, however, I am finding that this is not the best method for today. Quite simply, in my opinion beginning with Bible sutdy focuses far more on the head, about finding out about Christ and about the church than it does on the heart, in which somebody follows Jesus.
It's not that I think Bible study is bad...far from it. But I do wonder whether or not we should rather focus upon Bible study more after somebody is baptized rather than when somebody is simply learning God's will for the first time. Because my experience is that learning to be a genuine follower of Jesus Christ is not so much about knowing all the right things to know, but rather a heart that loves Jesus and sees his impact in the lives of other believers. Isn't this what Hebrews 1:1-2 is saying about how God speaks to people today, or how John 1:1-5 speaks of Jesus as being the 'word' of God? Most of the people I have had the honor to baptize in my life chose to be baptized not because of a perfect kind of head knowledge, but rather because they had seen in me (and in others) the power of a changed, sanctified life. Later on they would study Scripture and want to know more detail of what that life looks like...but I wonder whether or not we have baptized a lot of heads and not so much their hearts.
Here's an example: many of the pamphlets I have looked at will have a long section about the need for the church. And that's absolutely right...the church is the body of Christ, and a new (or any) Christian cannot hope to thrive or grow without the church. But most pamphlets will speak about the church: the 'qualifications' of elders, what makes God happy in worship (prayer, the Lord's Supper, giving, Bible study, and especially non-instrumental music), and perhaps, in some of the more modern ones, the need for love. Yet again, while these things might be right in their teaching, often they do little to really draw somebody into the church. If a preacher or a church member has a private Bible study with somebody and that person is then baptized, most often to this point there has been little or no real contact with the church. No chance to see it as a place of love, fellowship, and good works. It's no wonder, then, that many new Christians quickly fall away from the church, because they never had a chance to know it!
Another problem with these kinds of studies is that many people today are not so willing to follow along the proof-text path. One might bring up a subject like the inspiration of Scripture...and usually most studies will jump straight towards 2 Timothy 3:16-17 or 2 Peter 1:20-21. Fair enough, this is how I was taught and I believe these truths. But then there are questions...reading the context, these Scriptures are speaking of the Old Testament, not the New, what then? Or should we immediately accept the statements from Scripture itself about its inspiration? Don't all religious texts (the Quran, the Book of Mormon, etc.) do this to some extent? Quickly this leads us down a path of subjects that many even faithful Christians do not know about. Simply following along the old paths that many were trained with are no longer enough.
I am more convinced than ever that evangelism, in this day and age, is not easy, but it is possible if we will allow time for people to see the life of Jesus within us. But we're not usually ready for that...we'd rather have them buy our understanding of things, and shake the dust off of our feet when they are not so ready to accept it.
We are Bible-believing Christians, but first and foremost we ought to be Jesus-following disciples. If we really live like this, people will be able to see him in us and that will make all the difference.
Saturday, July 1, 2017
The American President
Yesterday we arrived home after a much-needed week-long vacation out into the mountains. It was nice to get away, and nice to be 'off the grid' for a few days as I could not get cell phone service many places we went. Not being able to Twitter or Facebook was healthy for me.
Of course, coming back in yesterday there was once again an instance where my first reaction was "Trump said WHAT?" Once again, our adolescent president took to his Twitter handle to say something stupid and vulgar about people whom he feels hurt him. Regardless of when you are reading this, you don't have to check the date, as likely he will say something just as offensive a month or a year from now, just as he said something stupid a month or a year ago. It never ends with this man. Even his supporters may shake their heads and say that he shouldn't say that, but they continue to support this man and so enable his idiocy.
However, after a week of seeing America, even as I enjoyed our trip and am blessed to live in a country with beauty everywhere, I am more and more convinced that he is truly an American President. That is, he actually represents a good percentage of my fellow citizens. A few hours west of here driving through a small town I saw a huge sign that had in crude printing, "Hillary Urine A**hole". I have no idea what that means, exactly, but I am sure that it is not word of praise.
A few days later, I was driving a state highway doing 75 in a 65. A huge pickup was behind me and obviously wanted me to drive faster. When he finally got past me, he gave me the middle finger...not just for a moment, but for a good 15-20 seconds...he wanted me to know for certain how much he hated that I was only going 10 miles above the speed limit.
And then the other day we were visiting an amusement and water park in a large American city. Such places, as I get older, are more and more uncomfortable for me because of the teeming masses of people (I'm a bit of a claustrophobic), but it's not just that there are people there, but that these people who represent so much of America are really quite disgusting. Young couples who have no shame of PDA while waiting in lines, guys who have T-shirts with middle fingers on them to show how rebellious they are, and all kinds of people with terrible tattoos that they have to expose. Near the end of the day I was waiting in the overcrowded waterpark for my kids and a youngish woman with blue hair was screaming on her cell phone, "Mom, it's all just f***ing s**t!" I started to listen in as she screamed for a good ten minutes about how this had been a terrible day because all her friends started going their own directions. No great tragedy, I think, but for her it led to a profanity-laced tirade towards her mother.
Yes, this is the America that voted for Donald Trump. Vulgar, rude, and often disgusting. If we get the president that truly represents America, I don't think we could have made a better choice.
Of course, coming back in yesterday there was once again an instance where my first reaction was "Trump said WHAT?" Once again, our adolescent president took to his Twitter handle to say something stupid and vulgar about people whom he feels hurt him. Regardless of when you are reading this, you don't have to check the date, as likely he will say something just as offensive a month or a year from now, just as he said something stupid a month or a year ago. It never ends with this man. Even his supporters may shake their heads and say that he shouldn't say that, but they continue to support this man and so enable his idiocy.
However, after a week of seeing America, even as I enjoyed our trip and am blessed to live in a country with beauty everywhere, I am more and more convinced that he is truly an American President. That is, he actually represents a good percentage of my fellow citizens. A few hours west of here driving through a small town I saw a huge sign that had in crude printing, "Hillary Urine A**hole". I have no idea what that means, exactly, but I am sure that it is not word of praise.
A few days later, I was driving a state highway doing 75 in a 65. A huge pickup was behind me and obviously wanted me to drive faster. When he finally got past me, he gave me the middle finger...not just for a moment, but for a good 15-20 seconds...he wanted me to know for certain how much he hated that I was only going 10 miles above the speed limit.
And then the other day we were visiting an amusement and water park in a large American city. Such places, as I get older, are more and more uncomfortable for me because of the teeming masses of people (I'm a bit of a claustrophobic), but it's not just that there are people there, but that these people who represent so much of America are really quite disgusting. Young couples who have no shame of PDA while waiting in lines, guys who have T-shirts with middle fingers on them to show how rebellious they are, and all kinds of people with terrible tattoos that they have to expose. Near the end of the day I was waiting in the overcrowded waterpark for my kids and a youngish woman with blue hair was screaming on her cell phone, "Mom, it's all just f***ing s**t!" I started to listen in as she screamed for a good ten minutes about how this had been a terrible day because all her friends started going their own directions. No great tragedy, I think, but for her it led to a profanity-laced tirade towards her mother.
Yes, this is the America that voted for Donald Trump. Vulgar, rude, and often disgusting. If we get the president that truly represents America, I don't think we could have made a better choice.
Friday, June 9, 2017
The Adolescent President
It's been said many times before, but we have a 12-year old boy in the White House. No, it's not Barron Trump (I think he still lives in New York with his mother). It's the president, Donald Trump. Watching him the last year or so has called to mind the Tom Hanks character in Big, a little boy who makes a wish for a big boy body and wakes up to find himself an adult. For awhile, it's fun. He gets to plays like a big boy until he finds out that it's not all that he thought it would be. The only difference between Josh Baskin (the character in Big) and Trump is that a)Baskin eventually starts acting like an adult and b)then returns back to being a child again without all of his big-boy responsibilities.
How else can we explain a character like Trump? Whether it is him bragging about getting a second scoop of ice cream (while everyone else gets one), or is never happier than while pretending to drive a semi, or harassing women by grabbing them by the p***y or walking in on them while they are getting dressed, or obsessing about how many people came to his party, he's a little boy who thinks that the world revolves around himself and throws tantrums when this doesn't seem to be the case.
Many liberals see Trump as a much more sinister, evil character, but after watching him for a year, I don't think he really is. Compared to a character like Frank Underwood in House of Cards, who is simply about power and seems to have a Palpatine vibe, Trump is a lot more about the pretend world of what he imagines power and influence to be. I'm not convinced after all this that he is smart or mature enough to get away with many of the things he is accused of doing. That's why he so nakedly tried to tell James Comey to stop snooping around (and then screams out DID NOT! when he finds out this is illegal); that's why he can't keep a poker face and keeps tweeting whatever is on his mind (or whatever he saw on Faux News); that's why so little of what he wants (big walls! tremendous growth! the best people!) will eventually come to be (though, of course, the GOP/Tea Party in Congress seem to be getting everything they want). He's just not capable of being the evil overlord that many fear him to be.
In the end, the strongest feeling I have for Trump is to feel really sorry for him, and I really do need to pray for him more. All his life he's gotten away with doing what he wanted and faced very few consequences. Nobody who has been as emotionally challenged as he is should be forced to do what he is doing. There's a reason we don't let horny, immature, self-involved 12-year-old boys drive cars or make important decisions, let alone run the country. For their own good, we patiently wait for them to grow up. Too bad we didn't do this with Mr. Trump.
How else can we explain a character like Trump? Whether it is him bragging about getting a second scoop of ice cream (while everyone else gets one), or is never happier than while pretending to drive a semi, or harassing women by grabbing them by the p***y or walking in on them while they are getting dressed, or obsessing about how many people came to his party, he's a little boy who thinks that the world revolves around himself and throws tantrums when this doesn't seem to be the case.
Many liberals see Trump as a much more sinister, evil character, but after watching him for a year, I don't think he really is. Compared to a character like Frank Underwood in House of Cards, who is simply about power and seems to have a Palpatine vibe, Trump is a lot more about the pretend world of what he imagines power and influence to be. I'm not convinced after all this that he is smart or mature enough to get away with many of the things he is accused of doing. That's why he so nakedly tried to tell James Comey to stop snooping around (and then screams out DID NOT! when he finds out this is illegal); that's why he can't keep a poker face and keeps tweeting whatever is on his mind (or whatever he saw on Faux News); that's why so little of what he wants (big walls! tremendous growth! the best people!) will eventually come to be (though, of course, the GOP/Tea Party in Congress seem to be getting everything they want). He's just not capable of being the evil overlord that many fear him to be.
In the end, the strongest feeling I have for Trump is to feel really sorry for him, and I really do need to pray for him more. All his life he's gotten away with doing what he wanted and faced very few consequences. Nobody who has been as emotionally challenged as he is should be forced to do what he is doing. There's a reason we don't let horny, immature, self-involved 12-year-old boys drive cars or make important decisions, let alone run the country. For their own good, we patiently wait for them to grow up. Too bad we didn't do this with Mr. Trump.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
The Handmaid's Tale and Biblical Illiteracy
I have been watching The Handmaid's Tale, adapted from the book of the same name, on Hulu the past few weeks. Not the greatest show I've ever seen, but it's still a solid 8. Two things keep running through my head as I watch it.
First, how do the villains in movies in which Bad Guys Take Over The World always find such a ready and willing supply of henchmen? The premise of this movie is that a plot is devised in which the government is overthrown by militias sympathetic to this cause. This, of course, makes one wonder where the police and military and national security agents were in all this. In addition, in this age of constant Big-Brotherism, how extensive could the Gilead government be considering there are it seems a dozen dudes in black vests and stocking hats sitting on each corner in Boston? And are these henchmen all being paid good wages? Did none of them have wives or girlfriends who found out and reported these plots? How on earth did this million-man militia arise without somebody at the Washington Post or the FBI getting word of it?
But second, and more importantly, what has really struck me about this show is how prevalent Biblically illiteracy would have to be for people to allow it to happen. One of the key points of the show is that when the handmaidens are essentially raped each month in the hopes of producing a healthy heir, a passage of the Bible (Genesis 30, I think) is read as a guide for how this can happen. Now, bad hermeneutics have enabled people to justify many terrible doctrines and practices over the years...but usually in every age there have people who have stood up and said, um, I think you are completely misunderstanding the Bible.
The more I think of it, though, even people who claim to be most religious often have no idea what their holy books actually teach, and ignorance allows those who misuse those books to get away with such things. Those who should know better stay silent because, in the end, they don't really know, and when the evil people of Gilead point to Genesis 30, the people who know that this can't be right cannot say why it is not right. Of course, goes in many other directions as well...today many use the Bible to support conservative principles such as low taxation, income inequality, or 2nd amendment rights; of the latter issue, the one that cracked me up the most was the one in which Jesus' disciples say to him, "'Look, Lord, here are two swords. And he said to them, 'It is enough.'" As if Jesus was saying that self-defense weapons were justified before he went to the cross. Liberals, too, misuse the Bible, thinking that Jesus only preached unlimited love and freedom without responsibility, salvation by just 'being good people' and the like...but again, they are just as wrong as conservatives.
This, my friends, is another reason why Biblical literacy matters. It's not just about ensuring that we avoid sins, but that we don't get ourselves believing that the Bible endorses rape, extreme patriarchy, or any other kind of foolishness. If we don't know what is right, then we can't very well speak up for what is right, can we?
First, how do the villains in movies in which Bad Guys Take Over The World always find such a ready and willing supply of henchmen? The premise of this movie is that a plot is devised in which the government is overthrown by militias sympathetic to this cause. This, of course, makes one wonder where the police and military and national security agents were in all this. In addition, in this age of constant Big-Brotherism, how extensive could the Gilead government be considering there are it seems a dozen dudes in black vests and stocking hats sitting on each corner in Boston? And are these henchmen all being paid good wages? Did none of them have wives or girlfriends who found out and reported these plots? How on earth did this million-man militia arise without somebody at the Washington Post or the FBI getting word of it?
But second, and more importantly, what has really struck me about this show is how prevalent Biblically illiteracy would have to be for people to allow it to happen. One of the key points of the show is that when the handmaidens are essentially raped each month in the hopes of producing a healthy heir, a passage of the Bible (Genesis 30, I think) is read as a guide for how this can happen. Now, bad hermeneutics have enabled people to justify many terrible doctrines and practices over the years...but usually in every age there have people who have stood up and said, um, I think you are completely misunderstanding the Bible.
The more I think of it, though, even people who claim to be most religious often have no idea what their holy books actually teach, and ignorance allows those who misuse those books to get away with such things. Those who should know better stay silent because, in the end, they don't really know, and when the evil people of Gilead point to Genesis 30, the people who know that this can't be right cannot say why it is not right. Of course, goes in many other directions as well...today many use the Bible to support conservative principles such as low taxation, income inequality, or 2nd amendment rights; of the latter issue, the one that cracked me up the most was the one in which Jesus' disciples say to him, "'Look, Lord, here are two swords. And he said to them, 'It is enough.'" As if Jesus was saying that self-defense weapons were justified before he went to the cross. Liberals, too, misuse the Bible, thinking that Jesus only preached unlimited love and freedom without responsibility, salvation by just 'being good people' and the like...but again, they are just as wrong as conservatives.
This, my friends, is another reason why Biblical literacy matters. It's not just about ensuring that we avoid sins, but that we don't get ourselves believing that the Bible endorses rape, extreme patriarchy, or any other kind of foolishness. If we don't know what is right, then we can't very well speak up for what is right, can we?
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
A brief thought about the effects of war on the soul
I am not a radical pacifist. There are times, it seems, in which Christians (and others) are called to defend the rights of the most vulnerable. Were somebody to try and hurt my wife or children or other loved ones, I suspect I would react violently in their defense.
But, as Ghandi supposedly said, 'An eye for an eye will leave everybody blind.' Violence (and the treasuring of the weapons that enable it) is far too acceptable for many Christians today. Most of the wars that we have fought in our national history should never have been fought; WWII might be one exception, though it seems to have sprung out of the soil of the wholly unnecessary WWI.
I have been re-reading David Harrell's book 'Quest for a Christian America, 1800-1865', which is about the social forces shaping the restoration movement in the early 19th century. This morning I was reading about the effects of the Civil War upon the movement, how it helped cause many of the cracks that would later rupture our movement. There were two passages that stood out.
The first was a quotation from a writer named William Baxter, concerning a man named BF Hall, who had been a gospel minister for years and thought to be a godly man. Upon seeing Hall again after he had gone off to war with a Texas regiment, Baxter writes "I had known him (Hall) in former years and was not prepared for the change, which a few hours' intercourse was sufficient to convince me had taken place. He boasted of his trusty rifle, of the accuracy of his aim, and doubted not that the weapon, with which he claimed to have killed deer at two hundred yards, would be quite as effectual when a Yankee was the mark....I ventured to ask what were his views concerning his brethren with and for whom he had labored in other years in the North and West. He replied that they were no brethren of his, that the religionists on the other side of the line were all infidel, and that true religion was now only to be found in the South....Once during the evening he wished that the people of the North were upon one vast platform, with a magazine of powder beneath, and that he might have the pleasure of applying the match to hurl them into all eternity."
I confess that I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh back in the 90s, and while I have seen how wrong he is on many things, one thing he said still stands out to me, that the military has two purposes: kill people and break things. He's absolutely right...at its core, the military is designed to be a killing machine. Over the years the question of how Christians can get behind this has long confused me. Again, while radical pacifism might not be realistic, and a strong military may be necessary as a deterrent against violence, how can people who desire to follow the Prince of Peace be so happy to engage in warfare?
In a second passage in which Harrell was analyzing the effects of the conflict on the unity of the church, he considers the writings of H Richard Niebuhr, and concludes that "Never before in American history had churchmen been so willing to renounce long-held convictions, rationalize fragile and unconvincing arguments, and spring to the defense of the socio-economic interests of their section-'the kingdom of Mars had conquered the kingdom of Christ.'"
Warfare and its godfathers nationalism and patriotism have a way of making people crazy. It makes them forget about the cross of Christ because they are too busy pledging allegiance to the flag. On Sunday I preached from Deuteronomy 12, in which Israel was reminded to put away idols and worship the one true God. I used the modern example of patriotism as perhaps a great danger, that it can become an idol that we allow to merge with our discipleship of Christ, a 'syncretism' that is akin to the idolatry that became prevalent in Israel's worship. I was nervous about using this as an example, and many of those who normally comment about how they like my sermons said nothing to me afterwards. I'm sure I made a few people upset, but I think I'm right on this. Anytime we let our true allegiance to Christ be pushed aside for patriotic, nationalistic, or militaristic reasons, we have let idolatry into our camp. It creates wedges between Christians, it causes people to become hateful to those whom they once loved and cared for, and it distracts us from our discipleship.
May God forgive us when we make the same mistake again and again.
But, as Ghandi supposedly said, 'An eye for an eye will leave everybody blind.' Violence (and the treasuring of the weapons that enable it) is far too acceptable for many Christians today. Most of the wars that we have fought in our national history should never have been fought; WWII might be one exception, though it seems to have sprung out of the soil of the wholly unnecessary WWI.
I have been re-reading David Harrell's book 'Quest for a Christian America, 1800-1865', which is about the social forces shaping the restoration movement in the early 19th century. This morning I was reading about the effects of the Civil War upon the movement, how it helped cause many of the cracks that would later rupture our movement. There were two passages that stood out.
The first was a quotation from a writer named William Baxter, concerning a man named BF Hall, who had been a gospel minister for years and thought to be a godly man. Upon seeing Hall again after he had gone off to war with a Texas regiment, Baxter writes "I had known him (Hall) in former years and was not prepared for the change, which a few hours' intercourse was sufficient to convince me had taken place. He boasted of his trusty rifle, of the accuracy of his aim, and doubted not that the weapon, with which he claimed to have killed deer at two hundred yards, would be quite as effectual when a Yankee was the mark....I ventured to ask what were his views concerning his brethren with and for whom he had labored in other years in the North and West. He replied that they were no brethren of his, that the religionists on the other side of the line were all infidel, and that true religion was now only to be found in the South....Once during the evening he wished that the people of the North were upon one vast platform, with a magazine of powder beneath, and that he might have the pleasure of applying the match to hurl them into all eternity."
I confess that I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh back in the 90s, and while I have seen how wrong he is on many things, one thing he said still stands out to me, that the military has two purposes: kill people and break things. He's absolutely right...at its core, the military is designed to be a killing machine. Over the years the question of how Christians can get behind this has long confused me. Again, while radical pacifism might not be realistic, and a strong military may be necessary as a deterrent against violence, how can people who desire to follow the Prince of Peace be so happy to engage in warfare?
In a second passage in which Harrell was analyzing the effects of the conflict on the unity of the church, he considers the writings of H Richard Niebuhr, and concludes that "Never before in American history had churchmen been so willing to renounce long-held convictions, rationalize fragile and unconvincing arguments, and spring to the defense of the socio-economic interests of their section-'the kingdom of Mars had conquered the kingdom of Christ.'"
Warfare and its godfathers nationalism and patriotism have a way of making people crazy. It makes them forget about the cross of Christ because they are too busy pledging allegiance to the flag. On Sunday I preached from Deuteronomy 12, in which Israel was reminded to put away idols and worship the one true God. I used the modern example of patriotism as perhaps a great danger, that it can become an idol that we allow to merge with our discipleship of Christ, a 'syncretism' that is akin to the idolatry that became prevalent in Israel's worship. I was nervous about using this as an example, and many of those who normally comment about how they like my sermons said nothing to me afterwards. I'm sure I made a few people upset, but I think I'm right on this. Anytime we let our true allegiance to Christ be pushed aside for patriotic, nationalistic, or militaristic reasons, we have let idolatry into our camp. It creates wedges between Christians, it causes people to become hateful to those whom they once loved and cared for, and it distracts us from our discipleship.
May God forgive us when we make the same mistake again and again.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Why Are We So Surprised?
So we are now almost 4 months into the presidency of Donald Trump. Daily there's something new that comes out that should have shipwrecked almost any other president, and daily the outrage and disbelief that we elected this man continues to grow. But what's amazing to me is not that these things are happening, but that so many are so surprised that this could happen. I mean, electing a thin-skinned reality TV star whose personal life has so often been a shambles to the most powerful office in the land, who could have predicted this?
-Nepotism and conflicts of interests with his family retaining business controls while having high-profile assignments within his administration: check.
-Charges that the election was stolen through Russian hacking, even as Trump continues to maintain many personal relationships and praise for Russian leaders: check.
-Trips on the government dime to Florida almost every weekend so that he can play golf, even though he routinely mocked his predecessor for playing golf: check.
-Firing subordinate government officials who have contradicted his 'facts', stood up to him, or even been investigating him or his cronies: check.
-Administrative incompetence and chaos after his signing of countless executive orders, many of which are quickly turned over for their sloppiness or being unconstitutional: check.
-Pointlessly bombing a foreign nation with cruise missiles, even while stating he has no intention of getting further involved, because his approval rating will tick up slightly after doing so: check.
-Petty late-night Twitter feuds with his 'enemies', to the point of threatening people and abusing the powers of his office: check.
And on and on it goes. There's not a thing that has happened in his administration that has surprised me, except that his approval rating still hovers at around 40%, even amongst people (usually poor, uneducated whites) who are going to be most screwed over by his policies. But then the other day I read a report that even Richard Nixon, who had done many things competently in his presidency, still maintained about a 25% approval rating in the last days before resigning in August of 1974. It made me realize that while Mr. Trump's approval rating will continue to drop, there will always be people who think he's doing a great job. Why am I surprised at this?
-Nepotism and conflicts of interests with his family retaining business controls while having high-profile assignments within his administration: check.
-Charges that the election was stolen through Russian hacking, even as Trump continues to maintain many personal relationships and praise for Russian leaders: check.
-Trips on the government dime to Florida almost every weekend so that he can play golf, even though he routinely mocked his predecessor for playing golf: check.
-Firing subordinate government officials who have contradicted his 'facts', stood up to him, or even been investigating him or his cronies: check.
-Administrative incompetence and chaos after his signing of countless executive orders, many of which are quickly turned over for their sloppiness or being unconstitutional: check.
-Pointlessly bombing a foreign nation with cruise missiles, even while stating he has no intention of getting further involved, because his approval rating will tick up slightly after doing so: check.
-Petty late-night Twitter feuds with his 'enemies', to the point of threatening people and abusing the powers of his office: check.
And on and on it goes. There's not a thing that has happened in his administration that has surprised me, except that his approval rating still hovers at around 40%, even amongst people (usually poor, uneducated whites) who are going to be most screwed over by his policies. But then the other day I read a report that even Richard Nixon, who had done many things competently in his presidency, still maintained about a 25% approval rating in the last days before resigning in August of 1974. It made me realize that while Mr. Trump's approval rating will continue to drop, there will always be people who think he's doing a great job. Why am I surprised at this?
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
The Circuit
Way back in my grad school days my aspiring preacher friends and I wondered who among our classmates was going to eventually be on 'The Circuit'. 'The Circuit' was slang for those preachers who seemed to be headlining every church lectureship program, who preached gospel meetings at all the big churches, and who seemed to be front and center on a who's-who list of Church of Christ preachers.
Almost a quarter-century later, The Circuit may well be dead. Few churches except the small and traditional do gospel meetings (having replaced them with parenting seminars or the like), lectureships are fading (sadly replaced by more independent programs like Polishing the Pulpit or Affirming the Faith seminars, which usually have taken a much more 'conservative' road than I have), and the famous speakers in our fellowship are now either evangelical authors (Max Lucado) or not even preachers (think of the Duck Dynasty clan).
I never really thought that I'd be one of those preachers to begin with, but after all these years I have come to realize that no way will I ever be famous outside of my small group of intimates. I almost never get invited to preach outside my home congregation, and when I do I never get asked back a second time. Sometimes I think about this, and while a part of me is slightly sad about it, I also am grateful for where I do preach and the ability to be home with my family as much as I am.
But again, why am I not one of Those Guys? All the time I see some churches still hold certain people up on pedestals, such as those churches who still have gospel meetings and invite people either a)I've never heard of or b)I don't really respect. Why not me? I mean, aren't I a solid preacher who knows what is true and has over the course of thousands of sermons somewhat honed his craft? I mean, I gotta be well past the 10,000 hour rule for having mastery over a craft (though, of course, preaching masters the preacher rather than vice versa...God is funny that way).
I suppose there are two ways to look at this. The first way would be the voice of arrogance...too many churches want the smiling white teeth, the well-groomed, the deep-voiced preacher...they're looking for all the wrong things! Or they want to be told what they want to hear, to hear the same sermons that they've always heard, to have the same affirmation of "we're right, and everybody else isn't" that seems to have characterized our movement. If that's the case, I tell myself, then I'm glad that I'm not on that circuit.
But the second way is probably a bit more honest. I am not much of a self-promoter...this isn't something I've ever really wanted to do, but it's likely important for building that resume. I'm introverted, have a hard time looking people in the eye, and my voice is irritating not only to me (it is!) but likely others. Sometimes my sermons aren't traditionally evangelistic but more of a Qoheleth-type search for truth (not this, not this, not this, but this), and while this is good for a long tenure at a church it's not a quick-and-to-the-point way that many like. And probably my greatest problem is that maybe I'm just not as good as I think I am. It takes a certain amount of smug arrogance to think that one is good enough to preach in the first place, and I have that...but likely it's a little bit misplaced. Maybe I'm at the right level, and God knows enough to keep me humble.
This summer I will have finished 22 years in full-time ministry, and 18 years preaching. I've loved this life, and will always be grateful to do this. It was not in my plans to do this back in the days we talked about The Circuit, but I'm still chugging along while a lot of those guys are now selling insurance or teaching middle school. I suppose God has a plan for me after all, and he can use me, even if my name will never be in lights.
Almost a quarter-century later, The Circuit may well be dead. Few churches except the small and traditional do gospel meetings (having replaced them with parenting seminars or the like), lectureships are fading (sadly replaced by more independent programs like Polishing the Pulpit or Affirming the Faith seminars, which usually have taken a much more 'conservative' road than I have), and the famous speakers in our fellowship are now either evangelical authors (Max Lucado) or not even preachers (think of the Duck Dynasty clan).
I never really thought that I'd be one of those preachers to begin with, but after all these years I have come to realize that no way will I ever be famous outside of my small group of intimates. I almost never get invited to preach outside my home congregation, and when I do I never get asked back a second time. Sometimes I think about this, and while a part of me is slightly sad about it, I also am grateful for where I do preach and the ability to be home with my family as much as I am.
But again, why am I not one of Those Guys? All the time I see some churches still hold certain people up on pedestals, such as those churches who still have gospel meetings and invite people either a)I've never heard of or b)I don't really respect. Why not me? I mean, aren't I a solid preacher who knows what is true and has over the course of thousands of sermons somewhat honed his craft? I mean, I gotta be well past the 10,000 hour rule for having mastery over a craft (though, of course, preaching masters the preacher rather than vice versa...God is funny that way).
I suppose there are two ways to look at this. The first way would be the voice of arrogance...too many churches want the smiling white teeth, the well-groomed, the deep-voiced preacher...they're looking for all the wrong things! Or they want to be told what they want to hear, to hear the same sermons that they've always heard, to have the same affirmation of "we're right, and everybody else isn't" that seems to have characterized our movement. If that's the case, I tell myself, then I'm glad that I'm not on that circuit.
But the second way is probably a bit more honest. I am not much of a self-promoter...this isn't something I've ever really wanted to do, but it's likely important for building that resume. I'm introverted, have a hard time looking people in the eye, and my voice is irritating not only to me (it is!) but likely others. Sometimes my sermons aren't traditionally evangelistic but more of a Qoheleth-type search for truth (not this, not this, not this, but this), and while this is good for a long tenure at a church it's not a quick-and-to-the-point way that many like. And probably my greatest problem is that maybe I'm just not as good as I think I am. It takes a certain amount of smug arrogance to think that one is good enough to preach in the first place, and I have that...but likely it's a little bit misplaced. Maybe I'm at the right level, and God knows enough to keep me humble.
This summer I will have finished 22 years in full-time ministry, and 18 years preaching. I've loved this life, and will always be grateful to do this. It was not in my plans to do this back in the days we talked about The Circuit, but I'm still chugging along while a lot of those guys are now selling insurance or teaching middle school. I suppose God has a plan for me after all, and he can use me, even if my name will never be in lights.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Beauty and the Beast...so gay, so sad
So the new Beauty and the Beast movie will have a repressed gay henchman longing to love his Gaston. Some of my fellow Christians, of course, are up in arms about this. A drive-in movie theater in Alabama has refused to show it, stating that they absolutely will not compromise on what the Bible teaches. We're horrified...SHOCKED...that something like this could come out of a Disney studio.
So...what's my feeling on this? I'm not even going to begin to justify what others are doing, but instead say that I believe that a lot of this is overblown. First, if you are expecting Disney movies to teach morals to your children, that's a problem. Second, homosexuality is now a part of American life, whether you like it or not. It's part of what America IS now...and so when a Disney channel shows have a character who has two moms, it's not that surprising. Should be shocked that even 'family' movies reflect this trend, much as they historically treated Asian as slanty-eyed lispers or blacks as subservient farmhands?
And third, and most importantly...if you want to do away with movies that, as one Facebook post I saw said, you couldn't watch with Jesus sitting next to you, then how many Hollywood movies could you really watch? Why are you so mad about this and so ready to pony up $10 for everything else?
-A chick-flick in which the unmarried couple sleeps together half-way through the movie...is that Christian?
-An action movie with lots of gratuitous violence as a man takes vengeance on a gang that hurts his family...is that Christian?
-A buddy cop movie with lots of foul language...is that Christian?
-A romantic family flick in which a woman falls in love with a beast who wears fancy garments...ummmm...
The point is this...getting freaked out that a gay character is in a Disney movie is most likely counter-productive. See it, don't see it, have a conversation about your family values with your kids...do whatever you want. But stop it with the outrage. You don't own the studio, though you've given them a ton of your money over the years. Your whiny self-righteous bitterness brings more shame onto Jesus than this movie ever will, and others can see it. No wonder people don't take your Jesus seriously.
So...what's my feeling on this? I'm not even going to begin to justify what others are doing, but instead say that I believe that a lot of this is overblown. First, if you are expecting Disney movies to teach morals to your children, that's a problem. Second, homosexuality is now a part of American life, whether you like it or not. It's part of what America IS now...and so when a Disney channel shows have a character who has two moms, it's not that surprising. Should be shocked that even 'family' movies reflect this trend, much as they historically treated Asian as slanty-eyed lispers or blacks as subservient farmhands?
And third, and most importantly...if you want to do away with movies that, as one Facebook post I saw said, you couldn't watch with Jesus sitting next to you, then how many Hollywood movies could you really watch? Why are you so mad about this and so ready to pony up $10 for everything else?
-A chick-flick in which the unmarried couple sleeps together half-way through the movie...is that Christian?
-An action movie with lots of gratuitous violence as a man takes vengeance on a gang that hurts his family...is that Christian?
-A buddy cop movie with lots of foul language...is that Christian?
-A romantic family flick in which a woman falls in love with a beast who wears fancy garments...ummmm...
The point is this...getting freaked out that a gay character is in a Disney movie is most likely counter-productive. See it, don't see it, have a conversation about your family values with your kids...do whatever you want. But stop it with the outrage. You don't own the studio, though you've given them a ton of your money over the years. Your whiny self-righteous bitterness brings more shame onto Jesus than this movie ever will, and others can see it. No wonder people don't take your Jesus seriously.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Facebook Live Worship
A local church has been advertising on their sign in front of the building that they now will Facebook Live their worship services on Sunday morning. A friend of mine, a youth minister in another town, has also been doing much the same thing with his Sunday school classes.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, for a younger set who might well not be able to come to a class due to work or distance reasons, this might well be effective in helping to teach them faith facts. And so on this, I applaud the outreach. Heck, I podcast my Sunday morning sermons and I know a handful of people listen to this each week for various reasons (they help in the church nursery or they are people I have known in the past who like my preaching are two reasons I have heard).
Yet when it comes to local worship, advertising locally in a small town, I wonder about this whole idea of videostreaming. Essentially it says, yes you are here in town, perhaps even close enough to walk, but you just don't want to get out of your pajamas in order to have a spiritual experience. But, it is objected, what about the old people who can't get out? Again, I get it (though my experience is that a. most older people have no idea how to get videostreaming and b. if anybody will make it services even when it's uncomfortable, it's the old people), though I wonder if this is simply an example of trying to fill a niche that doesn't need filling.
But my biggest concern is this: I wonder if internet worship makes us spiritually incomplete. For the power of church is not just in going and absorbing some good preaching or hearing the songs of faith. There's something about the necessity of community, of sitting next to somebody who may be very different than you but who likewise proclaims that Jesus is Lord. There's something about leaving the comfort of home to go a place that may at times be intimidating or downright scary and encountering the presence of God in a special place. There's something about realizing that we are more than individuals who come to God, but that we are a people united in community. All this is very difficult to do in front of a computer screen.
Of course, maybe this is the faith of a new day. So often we hear how people like God, but they don't really like Christians or the church. And so if people live on their phones and their screens are are increasingly starved for real human contact, isn't this the kind of God that they want to like? Should we be surprised that 'worship' without the need for human interaction is becoming so common?
I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, for a younger set who might well not be able to come to a class due to work or distance reasons, this might well be effective in helping to teach them faith facts. And so on this, I applaud the outreach. Heck, I podcast my Sunday morning sermons and I know a handful of people listen to this each week for various reasons (they help in the church nursery or they are people I have known in the past who like my preaching are two reasons I have heard).
Yet when it comes to local worship, advertising locally in a small town, I wonder about this whole idea of videostreaming. Essentially it says, yes you are here in town, perhaps even close enough to walk, but you just don't want to get out of your pajamas in order to have a spiritual experience. But, it is objected, what about the old people who can't get out? Again, I get it (though my experience is that a. most older people have no idea how to get videostreaming and b. if anybody will make it services even when it's uncomfortable, it's the old people), though I wonder if this is simply an example of trying to fill a niche that doesn't need filling.
But my biggest concern is this: I wonder if internet worship makes us spiritually incomplete. For the power of church is not just in going and absorbing some good preaching or hearing the songs of faith. There's something about the necessity of community, of sitting next to somebody who may be very different than you but who likewise proclaims that Jesus is Lord. There's something about leaving the comfort of home to go a place that may at times be intimidating or downright scary and encountering the presence of God in a special place. There's something about realizing that we are more than individuals who come to God, but that we are a people united in community. All this is very difficult to do in front of a computer screen.
Of course, maybe this is the faith of a new day. So often we hear how people like God, but they don't really like Christians or the church. And so if people live on their phones and their screens are are increasingly starved for real human contact, isn't this the kind of God that they want to like? Should we be surprised that 'worship' without the need for human interaction is becoming so common?
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Congratulations. You're Both Idiots.
We've all seen the show or movie in which there is a love triangle. Two men are fighting over a women, show themselves to be complete and total jerks, and she finally gets between them and says, "You're both idiots, I don't like either of you" and then walks out.
I feel kinda like that right now when it comes to both left and right. I used to be a solid conservative, but my years of studying the Bible showed me that Kingdom of God was not, in fact, a desperate cry from Jesus to lower taxes on the wealthy or build up our military infrastructure around the world. Yet the liberal perspective, which in practice seems primarily a cash grab in order to fund do-gooder projects of dubious worth, have never seemed a worthy alternative. While today I probably sympathize more with the Left than the Right, partly because the Right has moved so far into crazytown that it's impossible to at all accept it, I don't feel home in either ideology or either dominant political party.
The first week and a half of the current Trump administration has not made me feel any better. Trump...crap. What an idiot. Whether it's appointing cabinet ministers who are designed to placate the billionaire class or continue repeating many of our foreign policy adventures of the past half-century, or whether it's Trump himself overreaching to drive away every ounce of goodwill or common sense that may have existed, I'm convinced that ending his reign cannot come soon enough. Even Mike Pence would be a welcome change at this point...maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do think he has principles.
But some of the liberal response has, to me, been lacking. Yes, I am glad that there are protests. But I'm sometimes worried that their actions fall short. I wonder how many of the good-hearted liberals speaking of how we should not close our borders to refugees are willing to sponsor those same refugees. And many of those who are speaking up are doing so in such a crude manner that one can't tell the difference in style between them and Trump.
I'm not happy, and my patient waiting for the center to arise and put away this imbicility is starting to wane. It's not getting any better anytime soon, and I'm tired with the idiots on both side. Thankfully the 21st century is the best time in history to engage in some media escapism.
I feel kinda like that right now when it comes to both left and right. I used to be a solid conservative, but my years of studying the Bible showed me that Kingdom of God was not, in fact, a desperate cry from Jesus to lower taxes on the wealthy or build up our military infrastructure around the world. Yet the liberal perspective, which in practice seems primarily a cash grab in order to fund do-gooder projects of dubious worth, have never seemed a worthy alternative. While today I probably sympathize more with the Left than the Right, partly because the Right has moved so far into crazytown that it's impossible to at all accept it, I don't feel home in either ideology or either dominant political party.
The first week and a half of the current Trump administration has not made me feel any better. Trump...crap. What an idiot. Whether it's appointing cabinet ministers who are designed to placate the billionaire class or continue repeating many of our foreign policy adventures of the past half-century, or whether it's Trump himself overreaching to drive away every ounce of goodwill or common sense that may have existed, I'm convinced that ending his reign cannot come soon enough. Even Mike Pence would be a welcome change at this point...maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do think he has principles.
But some of the liberal response has, to me, been lacking. Yes, I am glad that there are protests. But I'm sometimes worried that their actions fall short. I wonder how many of the good-hearted liberals speaking of how we should not close our borders to refugees are willing to sponsor those same refugees. And many of those who are speaking up are doing so in such a crude manner that one can't tell the difference in style between them and Trump.
I'm not happy, and my patient waiting for the center to arise and put away this imbicility is starting to wane. It's not getting any better anytime soon, and I'm tired with the idiots on both side. Thankfully the 21st century is the best time in history to engage in some media escapism.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Dystopia then and now
dys·to·pi·an
disˈtōpēən/
adjective
1. relating to or denoting an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
One of the earliest movie memories I have was Logan's Run. Mid-70s, probably a TV edit (and thus taking out a lot of the sex and language). People are raised in a hedonistic city and live to a point of time and are conditioned from birth to believe in a process in which they might be able to live forever, but instead are inevitably blown up on their climb to utopia. A few people try to escape the process and are chased down and killed by 'Sandmen'. Yet two survive and get out and find the remains of Washington DC and some old people and realize that they had believed a lie. They come back, destroy their ideal world, and the movie ends with everybody leaving and wondering how to live the rest of their lives.
Dystopia in those days and through much of the next few decades was about a future world that was unpleasant. Blade Runner. Terminator. Death Race 2000. Mad Max. The list goes on, and the worlds created are scary but basically similar. Nobody was well off but only trying to survive in a world gone crazy.
Yet somewhere along the way the Dystopian world of the future started to change. Instead of a place in which everything was bad, dystopia became a place in which everything was bad except for a privileged few.
Perhaps it has always been this way. The world of Planet of the Apes wasn't so bad, if you were an ape. More and more things started to evolve until we came to the Hunger Games series. In it, there are the districts in which people survive, and the capitol, Panem, in which people live for bread and circuses as they are surrounded by and aspire towards luxury. Many other shows and movies have carried on this theme; I am currently watching a Brazilian import called The 3% in which people aspire to move from the slums to the 'Offshore', a place in which life is luxurious and healthy.
So, why has dystopia changed so much? Why is that inequality seems to be a greater form of injustice and misery than equality in which all are in the same crappy boat? Perhaps the answer lies in our world today. Deep down we cannot really imagine a world in which life is lived on the edge of survival, where day-to-day existence seems impossible. But we can imagine a world in which there is great inequality. We just elected a billionaire president who is appointing his billionaire friends to cabinet posts. We look around and the tax policy and priority of much of the ruling class is geared towards taking the 'burden' off of the rich and shifting it towards the poor and middle-class. All around us it seems like we are already moving towards a world in which the 3% is the aspiration, and only people like Donald Trump can enable that to happen.
What does this say about now? Conservatives might say that much of this comes because of the sin of envy...we want what other people have and do not want to have to work for it. Strive to make yourself better and you will receive it, if you only work hard enough. Liberals would point out how upward mobility seems to be increasingly impossible today, and how many barriers there are to it. What's the point of hard work when your options are limited by a system designed to keep the rich and powerful in their place?
Maybe dystopia is so popular not because it expresses some of our greatest fears, but because it hints at our current reality. Our reality-TV president could tomorrow announce that the Purge (or Running Man, or the Hunger Games with urban ghettos filling in for the 12 districts) will be coming to a TV near us, and we honestly might not be surprised. Professional sports remind us that people can be easily replaced, and the political situation today gives support to the class of undesirables striving to be accepted by the MadeIt culture.
Dystopia will continue to remain a real part of our entertainment, if not the year-round horror show we are warned about.
disˈtōpēən/
adjective
1. relating to or denoting an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
One of the earliest movie memories I have was Logan's Run. Mid-70s, probably a TV edit (and thus taking out a lot of the sex and language). People are raised in a hedonistic city and live to a point of time and are conditioned from birth to believe in a process in which they might be able to live forever, but instead are inevitably blown up on their climb to utopia. A few people try to escape the process and are chased down and killed by 'Sandmen'. Yet two survive and get out and find the remains of Washington DC and some old people and realize that they had believed a lie. They come back, destroy their ideal world, and the movie ends with everybody leaving and wondering how to live the rest of their lives.
Dystopia in those days and through much of the next few decades was about a future world that was unpleasant. Blade Runner. Terminator. Death Race 2000. Mad Max. The list goes on, and the worlds created are scary but basically similar. Nobody was well off but only trying to survive in a world gone crazy.
Yet somewhere along the way the Dystopian world of the future started to change. Instead of a place in which everything was bad, dystopia became a place in which everything was bad except for a privileged few.
Perhaps it has always been this way. The world of Planet of the Apes wasn't so bad, if you were an ape. More and more things started to evolve until we came to the Hunger Games series. In it, there are the districts in which people survive, and the capitol, Panem, in which people live for bread and circuses as they are surrounded by and aspire towards luxury. Many other shows and movies have carried on this theme; I am currently watching a Brazilian import called The 3% in which people aspire to move from the slums to the 'Offshore', a place in which life is luxurious and healthy.
So, why has dystopia changed so much? Why is that inequality seems to be a greater form of injustice and misery than equality in which all are in the same crappy boat? Perhaps the answer lies in our world today. Deep down we cannot really imagine a world in which life is lived on the edge of survival, where day-to-day existence seems impossible. But we can imagine a world in which there is great inequality. We just elected a billionaire president who is appointing his billionaire friends to cabinet posts. We look around and the tax policy and priority of much of the ruling class is geared towards taking the 'burden' off of the rich and shifting it towards the poor and middle-class. All around us it seems like we are already moving towards a world in which the 3% is the aspiration, and only people like Donald Trump can enable that to happen.
What does this say about now? Conservatives might say that much of this comes because of the sin of envy...we want what other people have and do not want to have to work for it. Strive to make yourself better and you will receive it, if you only work hard enough. Liberals would point out how upward mobility seems to be increasingly impossible today, and how many barriers there are to it. What's the point of hard work when your options are limited by a system designed to keep the rich and powerful in their place?
Maybe dystopia is so popular not because it expresses some of our greatest fears, but because it hints at our current reality. Our reality-TV president could tomorrow announce that the Purge (or Running Man, or the Hunger Games with urban ghettos filling in for the 12 districts) will be coming to a TV near us, and we honestly might not be surprised. Professional sports remind us that people can be easily replaced, and the political situation today gives support to the class of undesirables striving to be accepted by the MadeIt culture.
Dystopia will continue to remain a real part of our entertainment, if not the year-round horror show we are warned about.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Inauguration Day
Today Donald Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. Many people are thrilled. Many other people are horrified. I am neither, just resigned to the fact that we elected this man. Well, a minority of people hated Hillary Clinton enough to hold their nose and elect this man who won because of the strangeness of the Electoral College...but that's irrelevant at this point. He is our president, I and many others will pray for him, and while we may secretly hope that he has the long reign similar to William Henry Harrison (look it up), he and his minions are here and we have to get used to it.
So, do we expect from a Trump administration? I think there's about 4 real possibilities of what may happen.
1)5% chance: Trump will surprise us and become a great president. As somebody who truly thinks far outside the box, he will govern in a way that will be surprisingly effective. He will make deals that were impossible under the old way of doing things. He will restore our national pride, cut government to make it efficient, put more money into the pockets of all, and America will truly be great again.
2)12% chance: Trump will be president for about six weeks when he realize how big of a mistake he has made, how much he hates being trapped in a job he can't do, and he will start making plans to resign. Mike Pence will become the 46th president of the United States no later than the middle of 2018, and the ongoing war of attrition between left and right will continue.
3)21% chance: Trump will surprise only a few and be a truly horrendous president, but his ego and arrogance will combine with his minions telling him how great of a job he is doing and make him ever more steadfast in his plans. However, a large percentage of Americans will see the damage he and his cabinet are doing and see how badly they have been hoodwinked. The working class will recognize that he appointed a labor secretary that is pro-business and anti-labor. Parents will see how he has appointed an education secretary who hates public schools and is doing nothing but making them worse. Patriots will see how he appointed a Russian-leaning business executive to lead the state department and how America's stock and influence in the world has continued to be compromised. The presidency of Donald Trump will effectively destroy the Republican party as we know it, much as as the Hoover administration and the Great Depression led to a generation of Democratic control and influence. People will see that the 'right wing way' does not work, and look for something better.
4)62% chance: Trump will be a terrible president, but half the country will continue to believe that he is a great president because this is what Faux News and the rest of the right-wing media in this country tells them to think. The many, many problems of his policy will be blamed on Obama, the Clintons, liberals, and the Mainstream Media. The Democrats will be the ineffectual voice of opposition, protests from the left will continue to come and go to little effect, and in the end the poor and middle class will be poorer, there will be many more (and new) threats come from terrible foreign policy decisions that come from Trump and his team, and American will enter into an ongoing spiral downward. In mid-term elections the Democrats will pick up a few seats, though not enough to gain a majority because of the many gerrymandered districts. In 2020 they will run yet another ineffective candidate who may or may not win, but who will be attacked mercilessly in the same way the Clintons and the Obamas were. The Supreme Court, shored up with Trump appointees, will move decidedly right to the consternation of many, though its effects will not be nearly as day-to-day changing of American virtue as some on the right think. Some old-time manufacturing jobs will be saved because of Trump's protectionist rhetoric, but trade wars will become commonplace and the American consumer will suffer as low-cost necessities will go up in price. America will get involved in more petty and unwinnable wars, destroys cultures and structures in those nations in the name of 'freedom', and then walk away and claim victory even as those nations are still in turmoil. Christianity will continue to be increasingly ignored (or even openly resisted) by a growing number of young people as they move into middle age, as they reject the hypocrisy by those claiming to practice a heretical right-wing form of it. Family values, as reflected in the family of the new president, will continue to be shameful. Many of the dire warnings predicted will begin coming to pass, but the effects of the Trump policies will be felt for generations and often blamed not on Trump but future leaders of both parties.
I really hope I am wrong. But today is going to suck, and I need to pray more for myself and for the many who are about to have the worst president of my and any lifetime. God help us.
So, do we expect from a Trump administration? I think there's about 4 real possibilities of what may happen.
1)5% chance: Trump will surprise us and become a great president. As somebody who truly thinks far outside the box, he will govern in a way that will be surprisingly effective. He will make deals that were impossible under the old way of doing things. He will restore our national pride, cut government to make it efficient, put more money into the pockets of all, and America will truly be great again.
2)12% chance: Trump will be president for about six weeks when he realize how big of a mistake he has made, how much he hates being trapped in a job he can't do, and he will start making plans to resign. Mike Pence will become the 46th president of the United States no later than the middle of 2018, and the ongoing war of attrition between left and right will continue.
3)21% chance: Trump will surprise only a few and be a truly horrendous president, but his ego and arrogance will combine with his minions telling him how great of a job he is doing and make him ever more steadfast in his plans. However, a large percentage of Americans will see the damage he and his cabinet are doing and see how badly they have been hoodwinked. The working class will recognize that he appointed a labor secretary that is pro-business and anti-labor. Parents will see how he has appointed an education secretary who hates public schools and is doing nothing but making them worse. Patriots will see how he appointed a Russian-leaning business executive to lead the state department and how America's stock and influence in the world has continued to be compromised. The presidency of Donald Trump will effectively destroy the Republican party as we know it, much as as the Hoover administration and the Great Depression led to a generation of Democratic control and influence. People will see that the 'right wing way' does not work, and look for something better.
4)62% chance: Trump will be a terrible president, but half the country will continue to believe that he is a great president because this is what Faux News and the rest of the right-wing media in this country tells them to think. The many, many problems of his policy will be blamed on Obama, the Clintons, liberals, and the Mainstream Media. The Democrats will be the ineffectual voice of opposition, protests from the left will continue to come and go to little effect, and in the end the poor and middle class will be poorer, there will be many more (and new) threats come from terrible foreign policy decisions that come from Trump and his team, and American will enter into an ongoing spiral downward. In mid-term elections the Democrats will pick up a few seats, though not enough to gain a majority because of the many gerrymandered districts. In 2020 they will run yet another ineffective candidate who may or may not win, but who will be attacked mercilessly in the same way the Clintons and the Obamas were. The Supreme Court, shored up with Trump appointees, will move decidedly right to the consternation of many, though its effects will not be nearly as day-to-day changing of American virtue as some on the right think. Some old-time manufacturing jobs will be saved because of Trump's protectionist rhetoric, but trade wars will become commonplace and the American consumer will suffer as low-cost necessities will go up in price. America will get involved in more petty and unwinnable wars, destroys cultures and structures in those nations in the name of 'freedom', and then walk away and claim victory even as those nations are still in turmoil. Christianity will continue to be increasingly ignored (or even openly resisted) by a growing number of young people as they move into middle age, as they reject the hypocrisy by those claiming to practice a heretical right-wing form of it. Family values, as reflected in the family of the new president, will continue to be shameful. Many of the dire warnings predicted will begin coming to pass, but the effects of the Trump policies will be felt for generations and often blamed not on Trump but future leaders of both parties.
I really hope I am wrong. But today is going to suck, and I need to pray more for myself and for the many who are about to have the worst president of my and any lifetime. God help us.
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