America, Be Careful (Who) You (Vote) For
John McCain is not the Savior of the United States. He’s not an eloquent speaker.
He’s not a good campaigner. He’s not even truly a Reagan Republican.
He supports bipartisanship to a fault (in my opinion). He is for more regulation of the economy than most free-market conservatives are comfortable entertaining.
Yet, he is the Republican Nominee, for better or worse.
However, McCain is a hero and he deeply loves this country. He has served this country with passion and dignity for almost three decades. It is know mystery who John McCain is. (more…)
Gay Marriage and Proposition 8: A Christian Perspective
(WARNING, controversy ahead)
One of the issues that has gotten California all a twitter is Proposition 8. It is an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election Ballot entitled, quite bluntly “Elliminates Same-Sex Couples to Marry.”
The main problem with this bill isn’t that it is potentially discriminatory or that it is using fear-based tactics to convince people to vote for it. The problem is that Christians, and anybody else who worries about marriage rights in America, whether Christian, gay, Republican, or Democratic, have yet to clarify the principles on which they are defining marriage in the first place. (more…)
Where are God’s Hands?
With a God who cannot reach out and touch me, it is hard to know where God is. If the Father is near, if He is at work on me, where are His hands?
“O Lord, You have searched me and you know me” is the theme of Psalm 139. God searches me and knows me not only by seeing me, not only by being cognizant of my lifestyle, but by using His hands. (more…)
Greed: What the “Credit Crunch” means for the Unemployed
Proverbs 21:25-26
“The desire of the sluggard kills him,
for his hands refuse to labor.
All day long he craves and craves,
but the righteous gives and does not hold back.”
We are watching wealth recede from the American economy and solvency from the average American. National unemployment rates hover at 6.1%, and this month the US Department of Labor released that the largest mass lay-off event since 2001.
Who is to blame? The problem has manifested itself to be deeper than what can be caused a handful of corporate sharks. Their disastrous speculation with American funds has its broad fallout because a large portion of America has been grossly speculating with their own resources for years. We are spending money we don’t have. Yes, the extent of this problem is limited – the majority of Americans do not have any credit card debt. But our nation remains a republic of citizens, and it’s problems belongs to her citizens, and not to an aristocracy or oligarchy. (more…)
America, Politics, and Christianity
For normal, working people in America the political milieu in our overly media saturated culture is doubtlessly tiresome.
On every front page of every newspaper in our country is the latest coverage of the most recent sound byte, gaffe, or event that either presidential candidate made or attended. Talk radio won’t shut up about the election, even some sports radio stations I listen to are now talking about politics!
And, while it is understandable why many are turned off by politics, it is staggering to me how many Christians are “apolitical.” (more…)
Theology of Vocation
This past weekend Justin Taylor, Project Director of the brand-new ESV Study Bible, spoke to a local church about a Theology of Vocation.
Of the 112 hours per week that most people spend awake, about half of this time is spent at work! Because work takes up such a large portion of our lives and energies, wouldn’t it be a good idea to learn how to evaluate our working situation theologically?
The Postmodern Phantom
What does it mean to live in a postmodern culture? This question has been debated and discussed hotly for the last decade, not the least within Christian circles. What is postmodernity, and how should we respond to it?
I have found three general approaches or “postures” towards postmodernity. One is a critical posture towards postmodernity, seeing it as mostly bad and detrimental to the church and to society.
A second is an embracing posture, finding promise in the ethos and moods of postmodernity. I have also found a posture of general indifference and/or ignorance, which sees the discussion as inconsequential or amorphous, and continuing to live life as usual. (more…)
Is there Hope in this Difficult Life?
There is an ancient myth known well in our culture.
It is the story of Pandora and her “box”. The story of a woman unable to subdue her curiosity, so she foolishly looks into the box to see the “beauties” that lie within. As a result, she recognizes that what is inside is not anything beautiful but all the diseases and evils in the world, which are naturally let out of the open box.
Yet, this is not the whole tale. Firstly, the original story does not contain a box, rather it is a “jar”. And, while diseases and evils are let out of the jar, Hope is trapped inside under the lip of the jar, and Pandora shuts the lid of the jar with Hope still within.
What is this Hope that is left in the jar? (more…)
Whose to blame for The Bailout?
According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, the financial crisis is all due to the Bush Administration’s “failed economic policies” and the “right wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no oversight, no regulation.”
In his opening comments during the first debate, Barack Obama responding to a question about the economic situation of the United States, and specifically the bailout bill said,
“Now, we also have to recognize that this is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, (more…)
36,000 Are Writing the Bible, One Verse at a Time
Christianity Today has the article here. The gist of it is that to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the NIV translation Zondervan is having 31,173 Americans copy a verse, on at a time, from the NIV translation to create this memorial.
“The road-worthy Bible will be driven in a 42-foot RV by the Joneses and a Florida couple, Brooke and Tim Pancitz, to 90 cities in 44 states. At each stop, they will set up a tent and invite locals to print one verse from Zondervan’s New International Version”
