A Pause ... and a Picture

It was a great Thanksgiving. Got to see my eldest... Got to fix turkey dinner in a tiny kitchen in a big apartment.

Had a great time... In DC. In a place where everywhere we turned, politics was there to remind us.

And we had an amazing event. The picture is attached. I can't talk much about it now, but will in a couple of weeks... Still, this is a great system of government where our leaders are still reachable.

D--

None is not a choice...

Pick a party.

It's pretty obvious that my view of the world mirrors Thomas Sowell (see earlier post). I believe deeply that we are in a fallen world.

That man's heart never changes.

That left to his own devices, man will inevitably be selfish, self-serving, self-seeking.

That we are not getting better and better.

That we are in a constrained spiral.

That sometimes we are spiralling up to a point.

That sometimes we are spiralling down.

That the dregs of the Roman Empire and the depths of Nazi Germany and the horrors of Stalin's Gulag are the natural outcomes of one-sided rule.

That's why I believe in our parties.

I desperately believe we need the Conservatives (today that's the GOP mostly) to remind us that we are individuals and that collectivism batters incentive, trashes the economy, lowers a yoke of bondage to the group.

I desperately believe (though I don't want to) that we need the Liberals (mostly the Democratic party) to remind us that the group must work as a whole to lay out a safety net, that individualism can leave many in the dust.

As believers we must have BOTH parts to us... we are a body... we are one in Christ... we are individually saved and stand alone before our Judge.

But I believe if we do not choose one party or the other to be involved with we are saying that Christ does not belong in the Public Square. That we abandon the ideas of the parties to the godless who will run them both into the ground and attempt to gain absolute precedence.

Christians ARE the middle.. but only if we are engaged.

But still...

Which party?

D--

Party Animals...

What about party affiliation? Can an avid disciple of Jesus be active in a party? Is it right, or should they remain actively independent??

First, it is my belief that the CHURCH of Jesus should NEVER attach themselves to a party. I believe the American Evangelical church has done that too much today. Say Evangelical, and you hear Republican.

The problem is that Jesus is superior to politics. The church can be the handmaiden only of Jesus, and not of a party as well.

Power-politics, also, is not the way that Jesus' Kingdom is realized.

My Kingdom is not of this world.

Remember?

That said, the American system IS a party system. As individuals, if we are activist (SHOULD we be activist??) the only adequate mechanism to work within is the party.

To say we should NOT be party members strikes me as saying we should not belong to any corporation or organization outside the Church of Jesus.

Not very practical.

Yet party membership is often delusional. IT's so easy to forget that it IS Jesus' Kingdom we seek. That we are working for a Kingdom and Master not of this world. That we will NOT make His Kingdom come by any means save His power.

And Jesus' power is usually at cross-purposes with the World.

But if we absent ourselves from parties (retreating back to the Evangelical/Fundamentalist model of pre-1976) we cede the ground. We are to be IN the world and not OF the world.

But which party???

D--

One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State

Just a quick one today... Emerging church "father" Brian McLaren has said that Christians should not be Red or Blue, but should be Purple.

Meaning? We need to stay away from party affiliations. The whole of the gospel is not containable in either.

More on that tomorrow...

D--

Compare and Contrast...

Thomas Sowell is an incredible thinker and writer. Occupying the Ruth and Milton Friedman Chair at the Hoover Institute at Stanford (an amazing common-sense think-tank ... alright ... CONSERVATIVE think-tank) Sowell is an economist with breadth.

His book Conflict of Vision lays out the roots of this political divide we find ourselves in. In 1900 the discussion was of monopolies and monetary standards. But there was actually a pretty common ground from which these individuals fought.

Even in the Civil War, there was a common ground. It didn't stop bloodshed. But it made talking possible.

Sowell points out the vast difference between the American and the French revolutions. And in so doing he points out the divide we now face in this country.

The American revolution took a view of man that was limited. Man is constrained by his own sin and fallenness. Whether that view is held as a religious view, or simply a common-sense one, those holding that view crafted a country of checks and balances.

The American Revolution had an end. It did not seek to destroy what came before, only to put in its place something superior.

The French Revolution adoped the glorious progress of Man... if unchecked, Man could and would advance and perfect and throw off all bondage and emerge ... clean, pure, renewed.

For a modern mythology, check out the Star Trek universe... Man would overcome an Earth of conflict to reach for the stars and found the best hope for the universe.

So the French Revolution cast off all morals of the past, all ties. The Revolutionaries believed that Equality, Liberty and Fraternity would be enough to craft a society ever moving to perfection.

It did not move to perfection. It moved to a horrific scourge of purgings and brutality.

Meanwhile, the American Revolution checked its own impulses to spin out of control (and it almost DID spin out of control the very same way... the Revolutionary soldiers, unpaid, almost ran amok, the Whiskey Rebellion almost tore apart the fragile federation of States).

But the recognition that man is constrained by his own fallenness began a ferment that became, a decade later, the Constitution. Checks and balances.

Fast forward. The true conflict today is not Democrat/Republican. It's not even, in a way, liberal/conservative. After all, there are liberals and Democrats who are closer in action and belief to conservative Republicans than some other Republicans. And there are some conservatives who espouse a world more suited to the French Revolution.

The base of our political life today is the conflict of vision.

There are those who believe that man is fallen and society can be good but never perfect... that all actions have a cost. That the prevailing rule is the Law of Unintended Consequences. That cleaning the air rubs the economy. That letting the economy flow unfettered dirties the water... and on and on...

There are those who believe that Man can become perfected... evolve... become ever better. All that's needed is the right legislators, judges and leaders. All that's needed is for the obstructionists to get out of the way ... or be forced aside. Unfettered, man's best instincts will drive us out of darkness, poverty and sin.

D--

Why Does 1900 Matter???

Something happened around the turn of the last century. Christianity was profoundly changed.

Modernism happened.

The scientific method permeated Christianity and split it in two.

Splitting to one side were those who embraced fully the modern secular life. God was about ethics and morals. Good and kind living.

To the other side went those (who may actually have been equally modern and scientific) who embraced fully the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. Who embraced man's fallen nature and necessity for salvation completely apart from himself.

The group that hold tightly to the Biblical realm of Christianity retreated. They had enough internal battles to keep themselves busy.

Recognizing that man was inherently sinful and inherently unable to save himself, recognizing that the mission of Jesus to save was in danger of being overshadowed by modernism, this more conservative church concentrated on salvation and fought it's battles for doctrinal purity.

There was a lot to fight. At times it seemed as if Biblical salvation would disappear. As if Biblical confession and doctrine would be wiped away.

The Professing church became known as Fundamentalist... concentrating on the Fundamentals of faith. They adoped that label as a badge of honor.

Slowly, though, this church's withdrawal marked it as out of touch and irrelevant. By the late 60s, the church was the only place that still looked like Ozzie and Harrie.

American social issues mattered little. Those concerned with social concerns were suspicious. Social concerns marked the churches who no longer held to any Biblical authority.

The Fundamentalist church was very concerned with social concerns outside America. they poured immense amounts of time and energy into misison work, establishing hospitals, working on plans for better farming and procedures in villages.

After all, a man with an empty stomach couldn't hear the gospel! And it was better to teach a man to fish than to simply give him fish.

Abroad, the Fundamentalists worked so much social work that their orgnizations like World Vision and others created problems we associate here with American welfare.

There are whole areas of Africa that will not allow such organizations to operate because their barrage of food and aid decimate what little local economy there is.

The Fundamentalists became spiritual at home and ignored politics.

Until the revolutionary 60s. The 60s and 70s woke them up. They did not recognize America. They had to act and act fast.

But their culture was alien to the social problems that the revolutionaries saw. They saw an entirely different set of social problems. Permissiveness. Immorality.

And so was born the Christian Right.

Consideration Break...

This blog has been silent for a few days. It's taken me a while to digest Tuesday's election. I'm still digesting.

This headline is what I'm currently chewing on... it's worth registering with the New York Times to read this article:

Incoming Democrats Put Populism Before Ideology

Populism lives.

D