The time that is given

In the great fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, near the beginning of the first book, the wizard Gandalf tells the young hobbit Frodo Baggins, who will in the end be the great hero of the story, about the dark times in which they live, and the great challenges that lie ahead. Frodo, understandably, says he would rather live in happier times, times that aren’t fraught with such darkness; to which Gandalf responds, “So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The time that is given. In modern Christianity, it’s almost an article of faith that C. S. Lewis was a very wise man; but it’s too easy for us to forget that his great friend J. R. R. Tolkien, the man who played the most important role in leading Lewis to faith, was also a very wise man—because we mostly know him for his fantasy stories. But there is very great wisdom in that line, wisdom rooted deep in Scripture, and particularly in our passage this morning. We are limited creatures. We are limited in our abilities—good at some things, bad at others—and while we can grow and develop, we’re limited in our ability to do so. We’re limited physically—I’d love to be able to play shortstop in the majors, but that was never even a vaguely plausible dream—and limited mentally as well. We’re limited by our gender, and to some degree by the societal expectations that go along with it. We’re limited in our ability to control or influence the world around us—we can only reach so far, and what is beyond our reach eludes us; our bodies stop at the edge of our skin, and everything beyond that is not-us, carrying on its existence apart from us.

And most fundamentally, we are limited by space and time—we are creatures of place, and of the time we have been given. We are creatures of the places we live and have lived, and we are creatures of our place in human history; we will never know the life of an English knight who fought with Henry V at Agincourt, or of a Russian revolutionary in October, 1917, or of one of the shoguns who ruled Japan in the 1800s. We were each born at a particular time, in a particular country, and have lived through a particular set of experiences; we know our life and no other.

This is how we are; and as Genesis shows us, we were created so. When God created the first human, he didn’t just drop him off to wander around, homeless; rather, he placed the human in a garden which had been created to be his home. God gave him a location, a home address, a neighborhood, even if his only neighbors had either four feet or wings, and he told the human, “Do your work in this place.” Today, he tells all of us the same: “Do your work in this place, the place where I have put you; follow me in this community, in the home where you live, in the family of which you are a part, in the relationships you have now.” As Eugene Peterson put it in his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, “All living is local: this land, this neighborhood, these trees and streets and houses, this work, these people,” and thus it is as locals that we must live out our faith, placing the word of God in the concrete reality of “this land, this neighborhood, . . . this work, these people”—and bringing it alive in our life in response to all the concrete frustrations, irritations, and problems that “this neighborhood, . . . this work, these people” bring us. It is this place on earth that gives our lives their shape.

It is also this place in time—and, more generally, time itself. As Genesis also tells us, we are creatures of time, our lives shaped and formed in every respect by time in its passing. We can see this in our bodies, which are a collection of rhythms—the rhythm of our breathing, in and out, in and out; of our pulse, the twofold beating of our hearts, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM; of sleeping and waking, as day succeeds night and night follows day in turn. We can see it in the rhythm of the seasons, spring-summer-fall-winter and spring again. We can see it in the music that threads its way through our lives, providing an ever-changing soundtrack to our existence, and in the flow of our movements as we walk, or run. And we can see it most fundamentally in Genesis 1, which shows us God creating the universe in time, in the flow of time, and shaping a rhythm: and God said, and God said, and God said, in six-part harmony—six parts to creation, and then a seventh part, the seventh day, the day of rest.

This is, by the way, true even if Genesis 1 isn’t talking about six 24-hour days; the point isn’t counting hours, it’s that this is the rhythm God built into creation, the rhythm for which we were created, of work and rest. Both are part of his design for our lives, and both are necessary if we are to live as he made us to live. Whether you’re still working for a living or you’re retired, God has work for you to do in this place; whether it’s necessary for you to support yourself or not, it’s a part of God’s plan for you, both for your sake and for the sake of others. He also has rest for you in this place, time set aside in his schedule for you to set work aside, during which we gather to worship him as one people; and together, together, they make up the base rhythm of life, the meter to which the poetry of our days is to be set. I should note, I am indebted to Cambridge theologian and musician Jeremy Begbie for that way of putting it, and more generally for his use of music to illuminate Christian theology.

The problem is, the world tries to convince us that limitations are a bad thing, and specifically that this limitation is a bad thing; but it isn’t. Think of our music, and I think you’ll understand, because in our Western musical tradition, meter is one of the standard limitations that gives shape and character to the work of composition. Think of 4/4—the time signature of a Sousa march, and many of our great hymns. “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” Or 3/4—I remember being told in elementary school that this was waltz time. I was, what, seven years old, I didn’t even know what a waltz was, but that’s what stuck with me—3/4 is for waltzes and Irishmen. “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.” 6/8 is always fun—beat it in two, sing it in triplets. “In shady green pastures so rich and so sweet, God leads his dear children along.” And so on. The meter isn’t a straitjacket; you can vary the rhythms, throw in changes of time signature, whatever you will. But the meter provides the structure, the necessary base rhythm within which, and against which, all those other things can work to produce their desired effects. As another great Christian novelist, Flannery O’Connor, said, art transcends its limitations by remaining within them.

In the same way, God has given us this sevenfold rhythm of work and rest, of work and worship, to be the base rhythm of our lives. You don’t see too many songs written in seven, because that extra beat throws things out of the typical patterns, but I actually learned one this weekend. “What we have heard, what we have known . . .” It’s a setting of Psalm 78, and I don’t know if that’s why Greg Scheer wrote it in 7/8, but the time signature gives it a real sprightliness; the extra beat breaks it out of ordinary time into something else quite again. The same is true in our lives of the Sabbath, of the day of rest—it breaks us out of the ordinary time that our world and its economy would dictate, a straitjacket rhythm of work, work, work, work. That’s the driving beat of money and accumulation and more, more, more; it is, if you will, the meter of a life governed by nothing but material concerns and the desire for things. Think of it as 4/4 with never a change in tempo or stress and nothing but quarter notes in sight. But the Sabbath—the mere fact of this God-ordained day of rest throws us out of that meter; it fatally disrupts the profit-driven, consumer-driven, one-who-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins, all-about-me rhythms of this world, and shows us another way to live.

This is important, because as Genesis will show us in chapter 3, human sin disrupted the music for which God created us, and so the rhythms of our culture are now very much at odds with his will for us, and with the life for which he made us. As Dr. Begbie puts it, in calling us to focus on God and God alone, worship sets up a cross-rhythm in our lives—the rhythm of the cross, which runs counter to the pounding beat of our culture. God calls us to live very much across the grain of that culture, and we can’t just do that by main effort; our culture is too powerful. It’s like the big black SUV stopped next to us at the light with the bass cranked so high it’s shaking our car from the tires up. To overcome that overwhelming sound, we need consistent, steady exposure to the cross-rhythm of worship—to what Eugene Peterson, in his translation of the Bible, rendered as “the unforced rhythms of grace.” We cannot work our way into a truly Christlike life, because we learn to work from the world, and we learn to work in its way; but if we cannot force it, we can let God’s unforced rhythms of grace carry us along, as we learn to worship. We can focus our minds and hearts on him, opening our lives to his rhythm, and in so doing, allow him to transform us. Instead of trying to beat our own time, we can accept the time our great Conductor has given us, and let him direct us on.

(Cross-posted from Of a Sunday)

Song of the Week

The theme of this year's Worship Symposium was "Great Stories"—sort of a loose theme, but they were highlighting a number of narrative passages from the Old Testament. The opening service Thursday morning was Neil Plantinga preaching on Genesis 4:1-16, the story of Cain; he titled it "A Mark of Grace." Greg Scheer, who was part of the worship planning and leadership, wrote a song of that title specifically for the service (since, as he notes, the church is a bit short on congregational songs on that passage). He really did a remarkable job with it, I think; it has its flaws, but it's a song well worth singing.

A Mark of Grace

From the waters of creation to the waters of the flood
Flows a stream of human failure and an ocean of God's love.
From the first sin in the garden to the first son's jealous rage,
The whole human family follows a legacy of sin and shame.

A covering for Adam, a mark for banished Cain,
A rainbow in the heavens—in God's love there's always been

A mark of grace, a sign of love—
The love of God in flesh.
In your strong hands, the curse of sin
Is turned to blessing without end.
You've sealed us with a mark of grace.

From the tree of good and evil to the tree of Calvary,
We've been slaves to sin and suffering; we've been longing to be free.
But no offering could free us—and no sacrifice of blood—
Until God in tender mercy offered up his only Son.

Jesus Christ, the second Adam, raised on the second tree:
A sacrifice of mercy for all humanity.

Chorus

From the first light of the garden to the endless city's rays,
God in mercy has been calling, and we'll answer him in praise.
We will praise our risen Savior, who ascended to God's side.
We await his coming glory, when we'll live in his pure light.

We'll sing of our Redeemer—the holy, spotless Lamb—
Who holds our lives forever within his wounded hands.

For the blessings of the evening

Every once in a while, I hear a sermon that really shifts me, one through which God speaks to me and works in me in such a way that I know I have been changed. I had that privilege this morning at the Worship Symposium as Laura Truax brought us the word of God; I'm going to listen to this one again once the audio is up, and take some time to reflect on it. For now, I'm just thanking him for a truly blessed day.

Dr. Jeremy Begbie's plenary address was also exceptional (as I expected); he's also giving the plenary address tomorrow, so I'll probably wait to write about that until I've heard both of them and had the chance to consider them together. I think what he had to say may well produce significant change in my sermon this Sunday, though. The three workshops I attended were also all excellent (I probably won't write about all of them, but all three were very helpful); and then I get to spend the evening with my brother-in-law and his family. God has definitely poured out riches on me this day, and for that, I am humbly grateful.

What do you mean, "no"?

A colleague of mine recently made the observation that kids pass through two phases of egocentrism, once around 4-5 and once at the beginning of adolescence. He defined egocentrism as the belief that when it comes to something they want, if they can just make you understand how much they want it and how important they feel it is to them to get it, you will give it to them. If you as their parent (or other authority figure) refuse them, then, their assumption is that they must not have communicated their desire clearly enough, and so they'll repeat it—believing that if they just repeat it enough times, you will understand and accept that you have to give them what they want because it's that important to them. As he noted, the challenge of parenting a child in this phase is recognizing the reason behind their refusal to take "no" for an answer and not treating it as pure willful rebellion, while at the same time remaining firm in your answer.

Though this was a lesson in parenting, I have to admit, it set off political echoes in my brain as well.

So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is he overestimated you dumb rubes' ability to appreciate what he's been doing for you.

"That I do think is a mistake of mine," the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it."

But you schlubs aren't that smart. You didn't get it. And Barack Obama is determined to see that you do. So the president has decided that he needs to start "speaking directly to the American people".

Wait, wait! Come back! Don't all stampede for the hills! He gave only 158 interviews and 411 speeches in his first year (according to CBS News' Mark Knoller). That's more than any previous president—and maybe more than all of them put together.

What that says, exactly, I'm not sure; but it seems to me to be a parallel worth considering.

Political philosophy, article I

I will not cede more power to the state.

I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.

—William F. Buckley

Memo: to you in the Jeep

When the road is blowing snow over snow frozen to slick pavement—don't tailgate.

Thank you.

Gov. Palin to President Obama: Please Try, “I’m Listening, People,” Instead of “Listen Up, People!”

Gov. Palin's latest Facebook note hits the nail on the head, I think:

We’ve now seen three landslide Republican victories in three states that President Obama carried in 2008. From the tea parties to the town halls to the Massachusetts Miracle, Americans have tried to make their opposition to Washington’s big government agenda loud and clear. But the President has decided that this current discontent isn’t his fault, it’s ours. He seems to think we just don’t understand what’s going on because he hasn’t had the chance—in his 411 speeches and 158 interviews last year—to adequately explain his policies to us.

Instead of sensibly telling the American people, “I’m listening,” the president is saying, “Listen up, people!” This approach is precisely the reason people are upset with Washington. Americans understand the president’s policies. We just don’t agree with them. But the president has refused to shift focus and come around to the center from the far left. Instead he and his old campaign advisers are regrouping to put a new spin on the same old agenda for 2010.

Americans aren’t looking for more political strategists. We’re looking for real leadership that listens and delivers results. The president’s former campaign adviser is now calling on supporters to “get on the same page,” but what’s on that page? He claims that the president is “resolved” to “keep fighting for” his agenda, but we’ve already seen what that government-growth agenda involves, and frankly the hype doesn’t give us much hope. Real health care reform requires a free market approach; real job creation involves incentivizing, not punishing, the job-creators; reining in the “big banks” means ending bailouts; and stopping “the undue influence of lobbyists” means not cutting deals with them behind closed doors.

Instead of real leadership, though, we’ve had broken promises and backroom deals. One of the worst: candidate Obama promised to go through the federal budget “with a scalpel,” but President Obama spent four times more than his predecessor. Want more? Candidate Obama promised that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House,” but President Obama gave at least a dozen former lobbyists top administration jobs. Candidate Obama promised us that we could view his health care deliberations openly and honestly on C-SPAN, but President Obama cut deals behind closed doors with industry lobbyists. Candidate Obama promised us that we would have at least five days to read all major legislation, but President Obama rushed through bills before members of Congress could even read them.

Candidate Obama promised us that his economic stimulus package would be targeted and pork-free, but President Obama signed a stimulus bill loaded with pork and goodies for corporate cronies. Candidate Obama railed against Wall Street greed, but President Obama cozied up to bankers as he extended and expanded their bailouts. Candidate Obama promised us that for “Every dollar that I’ve proposed [in spending], I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” We’re still waiting to see how President Obama will cut spending to match the trillion he’s spent.

More than anything, Americans were promised jobs, but the president’s stimulus package has failed to stem our rising unemployment rate. Maybe it was unfair to expect that an administration with so little private sector experience would understand something about job creation. How many Obama Administration officials have ever had to make a payroll or craft a business plan in the private sector? How many have had to worry about not having the resources to invest and expand? The president’s big government policies have made hiring a new employee a difficult commitment for employers to make. Ask yourself if the Obama Administration has done anything to make it easier for employers to hire. Have they given us any reassurance that the president will keep taxes low and not impose expensive new regulations?

Candidate Obama over-promised; President Obama has under-delivered. We understand you, Mr. President. We’ve listened to you again and again. We ask that you now listen to the American people.

—Sarah Palin

Fire the committee

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

—James 4:8 (ESV)

This verse has been echoing in my mind ever since I preached on James 4:1-10 a few months ago; which is why this post from the Rev. Dr. Ray Ortlund really struck me today:

You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.

He’s right; and as he says, it isn’t enough just to “accept Jesus” if all that means is that we give Jesus a seat on the committee, which too often is all we do. That leaves us still divided in our allegiance—divided against God, divided against ourselves. The only real solution is far more drastic:

The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. Please run my whole life for me.” That is not complication; that is salvation.

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.

Which is why, as C. S. Lewis said, Christ plus anything equals nothing—because if we insist on hanging on to anything else, we don’t get Jesus.

Political math, and how to win by not quite winning

Amazingly, it's only January, and some people are already speculating about whether the GOP could take back the House, and maybe even the Senate, in November. The main reason for this, of course, is Scott Brown's stunning victory in Massachusetts running on a conservative platform. Writing for RealClearPolitics, Sean Trende has estimated that "the GOP currently has about a one-in-three chance of getting the 40 seats they need to take back the House," and even a plausible if still very unlikely shot at retaking the Senate. His suggestion that the Republicans have a very good chance of gaining 6-7 Senate seats this fall isn't idiosyncratic, either—liberal political/sabermetric analyst Nate Silver is saying something very similar. On balance, it would seem likely that when the dust settles in November, the Democrats will still control both houses of Congress, but barring a significant shift in their favor, their majority will probably be quite slim.

Most Republicans and Republican-leaning voters will probably be hoping for more; but from a purely cynical political point of view, they shouldn't be. The best possible political outcome for the Republican Party would be for the Democrats to hold ~52 Senate seats (counting Joe Lieberman) and ~220 House seats. After all, what would the difference be between that and a situation in which Republicans had the exact same majorities? Probably not much in terms of legislation—but a world of difference in terms of who gets blamed for the gridlock.

In the current political climate, assuming things remain enough the same that we end up with a major Republican recovery and a closely-divided Congress, is that sort of razor-thin majority going to be able to produce significant legislation which President Obama would sign? No. But if the Republicans are in the majority, they will nevertheless be blamed by the White House and the Democratic Party as the obstructionists who are single-handedly preventing progress (conveniently forgetting the two years of Democratic supermajority that, so far, haven't done much either); I would have to think that the chance to spend two solid years campaigning against Congress (which is unpopular no matter how you slice it) would dramatically improve the President's chances at re-election in 2012, and spread his coattails a lot wider as well. If it's a Democratic majority, though, then an unpopular and ineffectual Congress will only hurt his prospects, and those of the Democratic Party.

Now, as I said, this is a purely cynical analysis. Is what's best for future Republican prospects also what's best for the country? I really don't know. I had hoped that the GOP would really internalize the lessons of its defeats in 2006 and 2008, enough to be humbled and chastened, before regaining power, and I really don't see that as having happened; rather, the misplays, miscues, and mismanagement by the White House that prompted Mortimer Zuckerman to declare that the President "has done everything wrong" have handed them a shot at a political recovery that they have by no means earned. This is very worrisome to me.

Larry Kudlow is right, I think, that the GOP elite doesn't even understand why voters are turning away from the administration and its policies—which suggests to me that if they do wind up back in the majority, they're likely to wind up right back to the behaviors that got them wiped out in the first place. I believe, to be blunt, that that's exactly what the Beltway GOP is hoping for. If I'm right about this, then that's why elites on the Right continue to fight so hard against the possibility of Sarah Palin winning the 2012 nomination: she has a history of opposing exactly those sorts of behaviors in her own party, and of doing so quite successfully. If they can put an establishment type like Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani in the White House, though, I think they think they can go right back to business as usual. That might not be the worst possible outcome, but it would have to be up there.

Imago Dei

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

—Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

If you look to Catholic and Protestant theology to find out what it means that human beings are made in the image of God, you’ll find a lot of differing explanations, containing a lot of wisdom, but mostly missing the key fact: in the ancient world, the phrase “image of God” primarily meant a statue of a deity in a temple. Worship in those days focused on those images; where the image of a god or goddess was, that god or goddess was understood to be present in the image. As a consequence, people believed that if they created these images and built houses for them, brought sacrifices and observed the ceremonies faithfully, they could ensure that their gods would be with them—and that if they didn’t, their gods would abandon them.

Genesis 1-2 take a very different view. All creation is God’s temple, and Genesis 1 shows us God building it for himself; then he resolves to create his image—human beings—to place within that temple. In Genesis 2:7, we see him forming his image out of the dirt—perhaps out of the heavy clay by the river, much as the priests of Egypt made their idols; then, having breathed life into the first human being, God installs him in the temple, in the garden which he has created for the purpose. In presenting God’s creative work in this way, Genesis makes it clear that the pagans and their idols are merely a poor copy of the one true God.

This was, and remains, a dramatic challenge to the pagan worldview; and odd though it may sound, it’s not only a religious challenge, but also a political one. You see, theologically, the pagan nations around Israel understood that their chief god, whichever one that might be, ruled their nation; but as a practical matter, clearly it was the king who ruled. Thus, logically, it must be that the king ruled the nation as the representative of the god, and so they spoke of the king being the image of their god—the god’s physical representation who ruled on his behalf.

This is of course a profoundly elitist view—only the most powerful and important person in the nation was worthy of this label; everyone else was less important, second-class. Their gods and goddesses would smugly accept their worship, but disdained to identify themselves with such insignificant creatures. Out of this came the mindset that some human lives were more important than others, which as a practical matter meant that your life was only important to the degree that you were of use to the king. From that sort of perspective, our modern notions of equality and human rights would have seemed like ridiculous drivel; if the king is the image of the god and you aren’t, obviously the king is greater and you are lesser, and you don’t have rights, you’re just allowed to do whatever the king wants you to do.

That was pretty much the way ordinary people were seen by those who ruled the nations around Israel—they existed to serve their rulers in whatever way those rulers might desire; which is why Genesis was such a radical text. Its insistence that all people are made in the image of God blew that elitism away and replaced it with a very, very different view of humanity—rooted in an equally different view of God. This was a God who identified himself not only with the important people, but with all people, declaring that he had created all people in his image; this was a God who had created humanity not to be his slaves, serving his comfort and doing his dirty work (which was why the Babylonians, for instance, believed their high god Marduk had created humanity), but in order that he might love us and we might love him.

There’s an important lesson in this: no human life is worth less than another. That might seem too obvious to need saying, but in fact it needs frequent repetition; the idea that some lives are worth less than others is one which keeps cropping up all over the place. These days, we see it in, among other places, the euthanasia movement, and in some of the arguments made in favor of abortion. Princeton professor Peter Singer is the clearest example of this, arguing at every opportunity that some people’s lives are not worth living—and that their family members should be free to kill them if it seems preferable. Against this idea, in all its forms, stands Genesis (and indeed the whole of Scripture), which declares unequivocally that God has made all people in his image, and loves all whom he has made. It is not ours to regard anyone as less important, or less human, than anyone else, no matter what excuses we might offer; whenever we look at another human being, regardless of any other considerations, we see the image of God in them, and we must treat them accordingly, without exception.

(Adapted from “Toledot” and “In the Image of God”)

A good call from the President

I'd meant to post on this yesterday, but didn't get the chance. The devil is in the details, as always, but the core idea here is right and important:

With former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker at his side, Mr. Obama said he wanted to toughen existing limits on the size of financial firms and force them to choose between the protection of the government's safety net and the often-lucrative business of trading for their own accounts or owning hedge funds or private-equity funds. . . .

"The key issue is that institutions that are getting a backstop from the taxpayer shouldn't be able to make a profit off their own investing," said Austan Goolsbee, a White House economist who staffs the presidential advisory board Mr. Volcker chairs. . . .

Under the Obama proposal, banks that take federally insured deposits or have the right to borrow from the Fed would be prohibited from owning, investing in or sponsoring hedge funds or private-equity firms. "You can choose to engage in proprietary trading, or you can own a bank, but you can't do both," an administration official said.

The reason for taking this step was articulated well by National Review's Jim Manzi:

Finance professionals, like members of all occupational categories, attempt to build barriers that maintain their own income. One of the techniques used is to shroud what are often pretty basic ideas in pseudo-technical jargon. The reason that it is dysfunctional to have an insured banking system that is free to engage in speculative investing is simple and fundamental. We (i.e., the government, which is to say, ultimately, the taxpayers) provide a guarantee to depositors that when they put their savings in a regulated bank, then the money will be there even if the bank fails, because we believe that the chaos and uncertainty of a banking system operating without this guarantee is too unstable to maintain political viability. But if you let the operators of these banks take the deposits and, in effect, put them on a long-shot bet at the horse track, and then pay themselves a billion dollars in bonuses if the horse comes in, but turn to taxpayers to pay off depositors if the horse doesn’t, guess what is going to happen? Exactly what we saw in 2008 happens.

If you want to have a safe, secure banking system for small depositors, but don’t want to make risky investing illegal (which would be very damaging to the economy), the obvious solution is to not allow any one company to both take guaranteed deposits and also make speculative investments. This was the solution developed and implemented in the New Deal. We need a modernized version of this basic construct, and as far as I can see, this is what President Obama has proposed. . . .

Make no mistake, many banking executives right now are benefiting from taxpayer subsidies. Even if they pay back the TARP money, the government has demonstrated that it will intervene to protect large banks. This can’t be paid back. And this implicit, but very real, guarantee represents an enormous transfer of economic value from taxpayers to any bank executives and investors who are willing to take advantage of it. Unsurprisingly, pretty much all of them are.

Now, as Megan McArdle points out, there's a lot that we don't know that will bear very heavily on whether this policy ultimately benefits our country—and even assuming it's the right thing to do, there will be distinct and significant downsides to it. Nevertheless, the government has to reduce its exposure somehow, and this seems to be the most reasonable way to do it.

The government is recognizing that banks "paying back" the funds they were given is essentially meaningless, because they've still got a very, very valuable implied government guarantee. One could argue that they've had it since 1991 when the Federal Reserve got the power to loan money to investment banks in extremis. But since last fall, it's the next best thing to explicit. That means the government needs to take steps to mitigate its own risk.

The way you do that is to decouple the key operation the government insures—the funneling of credit from those with money to those who want to borrow it—from making bets on market outcomes that can go badly wrong. And to ensure that no institution has enough liabilities to take down the system if it fails.

It may not work, as she acknowledges, and it won't be without significant cost; but we can't unring the bailout bell, so what else are we going to do?

Howard Dean invokes the Babel fish

Watching Howard Dean try to spin Scott Brown's victory to mean that Democrats need to keep pushing for socialized medicine is quite entertaining, given that Chris Matthews isn't about to buy it. I can only conclude that Matthews doesn't want to get run over on the next zebra crossing.

True colors

If you thought liberals were in favor of free speech, think again. Today, the United States Supreme Court released its decision in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which it struck down a major censorship provision of the McCain-Feingold "campaign-finance reform" act of 2002. In response, Ralph Nader's group Public Citizen issued a call for a constitutional amendment to partially repeal the First Amendment:

In their statement responding to the decision, Public Citizen demanded public financing of congressional elections, then added its call for an amendment, saying:

Public Citizen will aggressively work in support of a constitutional amendment specifying that for-profit corporations are not entitled to First Amendment protections, except for freedom of the press. We do not lightly call for a constitutional amendment. But today’s decision so imperils our democratic well-being, and so severely distorts the rightful purpose of the First Amendment, that a constitutional corrective is demanded.

We are formulating language for possible amendments, asking members of the public to sign a petition to affirm their support for the idea of constitutional change, and planning to convene leading thinkers in the areas of constitutional law and corporate accountability to begin a series of in-depth conversations about winning a constitutional amendment.

[. . .]

At least they are finally admitting that they view the First Amendment—which says Congress shall make no law respecting freedom of speech—as flawed. And that they judge themselves as smarter than James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights that begins with the First Amendment (actually it was the third, but that's another story), and the "Father of the Constitution."

Whither the administration now?

It has been interesting watching the reactions to Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts—after all, it’s significant enough that a Republican won a Senate seat in the safest Democratic state in the country, but that he did so not by painting himself as a moderate but by emphasizing his conservative positions on taxes, health care, and national security is amazing. Normally, one figures that significant defeats should lead us to examine ourselves and re-evaluate our efforts, and that failure should inspire us to humility; the initial returns from leading Democrats didn’t show any sign of that, though. Nancy Pelosi declared that the health care deform bill would pass, “one way or another,” even if the only way to do that were to force the House to accept the Senate bill in toto—even though folks like Bart Stupak were saying that that idea was a non-starter (a fact which Speaker Pelosi is now recognizing). The lesson Howard Dean drew from the election is, “We gotta be tougher . . . leadership is not trying to be centrist and get everybody to work together, because that’s not going to happen.” Well, no, if you’re not willing to give as much as you get, it isn’t.

(Interestingly, Dean also said, “George Bush would have had the health care bill done a long time ago and it would have been done through reconciliation and that would have been what we wanted.” This is striking on two counts. First, it’s revealing of his attitudes; it would appear that all the things for which the Democratic leadership berated President Bush were things which they secretly admired. Second, though Dean didn’t make it explicit, this is a pretty sharp negative comparison of Barack Obama to his predecessor; the implicit line here is “Bush was tough and knew how to get things done; Obama isn’t and doesn’t.” Given how vicious the Democrats were toward President Bush, this is no small thing.)

As a practical matter, once a Brown victory began to look probable, Democrats began talking about delaying seating him so that the placeholder, Paul Kirk, could vote on the Demcare bill. That talk sparked a sharp popular response, including petitions and Facebook groups demanding Sen.-elect Brown be seated immediately, and Democratic senators such as James Webb (D-VA) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) quickly made it known after the election that they expected the Senate to hold any significant deliberations until Sen. Brown had formally joined the chamber; President Obama said the same, but whether he meant it or whether this is just another case of him taking the rhetorical high road and leaving the dirty work to those around him is unclear.

What does seem clear, however, is that the President and his administration are unable or unwilling to see the election result in Massachusetts as reflecting on them, or as an indication that they need to change their agenda. So far, White House weathervane Robert Gibbs has varied between flippant, glib, sarcastic, and dismissive in dealing with any suggestions to that effect. David Axelrod has declared that backing off on the President’s health care agenda is “not an option.” Mike Allen of Politico quoted “a senior administration official” as saying,

This is not a moment that causes the president or anybody who works for him to express any doubt. It more reinforces the conviction to fight hard.

The article continues,

The health care backdrop has given the White House a strong incentive to strike a defiant posture, at least rhetorically, in response to what would be an undeniable embarrassment for the president and his party. . . .

“The response will not be to do incremental things and try to salvage a few seats in the fall,” a presidential adviser said. “The best political route also happens to be the boldest rhetorical route, which is to go out and fight and let the chips fall where they may. We can say, ‘At least we fought for these things, and the Republicans said no.’”

Which makes perfect political sense . . . if you believe that those are things the public wants done. If a majority of Americans don’t want them done, then the overall public response to that will be “Good for the Republicans,” and the result will be strong gains for the GOP. At this point, the White House appears (wilfully?) incapable of considering the possibility that Barack Obama might not have the mandate he thought he had, and that the public might actually really honestly not want him to do what he’s determined to do. He even went so far as to tell congressional Democrats that if they just pass the health care bill, those who are opposed to it will “suddenly” discover that they like it after all.

Given this, it’s not surprising that the President seems to assume that his party will go along with him in pushing his agenda through; at this point, though, even liberals in the party are backing away from his agenda, as the Massachusetts vote has put the fear of defeat in them. As the New York Times put it,

Mr. Obama could find it more difficult to get moderate and conservative-leaning Democrats in Congress to cast politically tough votes.

It will be lost on few in the House or the Senate that the Democratic defeat in an overwhelmingly Democratic state came despite a last-minute personal appeal from Mr. Obama, who campaigned here for Ms. Coakley on Sunday. This suggests that Mr. Obama may be of limited or no help to candidates in close elections. No less important, he may not have much leverage to stop them from defying him in Washington.

The question is, is the President willing to accept this? Is he willing to accept that he isn’t the titanic, popularly-adored champion of liberal change he seems to have thought he was? Or is he wedded to the belief that he’s a transformative figure who’s going to change America and its politics forever? As Jay Cost says, we really don’t know, but if the White House isn’t just blustering, if they’re serious, it will not end well.

Democrats should hope that this is just aggressive talk designed to buy the White House time to figure out what to do next. If the President really thinks this, they are going to be in a mess of trouble for the rest of his term, for it would mean that he's too stubborn or arrogant to make needed adjustments. It would mean that a comparison to Jimmy Carter is more apt than a comparison to Franklin Roosevelt.

Frankly, all of us should hope that this is just bluster from a typically blustery White House. Barack Obama is going to hold his office for the next three years regardless of whatever happens in congressional elections in November, regardless of how well he governs, regardless of where his job approval numbers go. Let's hope that this untested, young, inexperienced fellow the country elevated to the highest office in the land has the good sense to recognize the message the Bay State sent last night, to understand that messages of similar intensity will be sent in November, and to direct his staff to make necessary changes.

Watch Obama carefully for the next few weeks. How does he react to this Senate defeat? What does he do about health care? Does his message shop change its typically aggressive posture? Answers to these questions are going to teach us a lot about the still-mysterious person who currently holds the office of President of the United States.

For the sake of the country, let’s hope that our President is willing to humble himself and his administration, to accept the message of Massachusetts and bow his head to the people. As John Judis has pointed out, Barack Obama really prefers to hang out with the elite and look down on the rest of us; here’s hoping he’ll come down from the ivory tower and stop seeing himself as above the people he was elected to serve. Partly, this would mean moving to the center, looking for initiatives that both Democrats and Republicans can support; more than that, though, it would mean spending a lot less time lecturing Americans on what’s good for us, and a lot more time listening seriously and respectfully to those who disagree with him. It would mean replacing the attitude of “I won” with the attitude of “How can I serve you?” Do I expect this? I don’t know. But here’s hoping.

Making an idol of autonomy

I first ran across this video and this song in a post on The Thinklings (which I can't find now, not remembering the text of the post), and mercifully quickly forgot it. I happened, through a combination of circumstances, to hear it again last week, and now I have it stuck in my head. It's aggravating, because this song annoys me from about every angle possible. It's sappy and saccharine, for one thing, lyrically bad and musically sickly. It's tendentious and presumptuous, in claiming "thus says the Lord" for a disputed theological position (I probably wouldn't be quite as irritated were some idiot Calvinist to do the same in reverse, but it would be mighty close; that's just inappropriate no matter who does it). It fails to take human sin seriously, portraying it as something we can simply choose not to do. (To some extent, that could be said to be true of Arminianism more generally, but this sort of naïvete about sin goes beyond Arminianism into the realm of caricature.)

And most significantly, because the author of this thing had the gall to write it as something spoken by God, its sickly-sweet sappiness is more than just an artistic failing, it's a theological problem. This song abases God, portraying him as a moony lovesick teenager (with all the artistic capabilities and instincts pertaining thereunto), for the sake of feeding our own sense of self-importance. Even if I were an Arminian, this would drive me bats. We must be zealous for the glory and holiness of God; don't trust anyone who isn't. A God who is at our beck and call as this song portrays is a God made in our own image, to suit and serve our own desires . . . which is to say, a false god.

Anything that is not the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone can become an idol.

Sen. Scott Brown, ordinary barbarian?

It sure sounds like it to me. I will freely admit, up until a couple days ago I knew nothing about him except that he was trying to do the impossible: get elected to the Senate as a Republican in the Edward M. Kennedy Memorial Massachusetts Senate Seat. Having seen him do just that, and having had the chance to see and read his victory speech, I have to admit, I’m impressed. For video of his speech, go here; the text is below, courtesy of Charlie Spiering:

Thank you very much. I’ll bet they can hear all this cheering down in Washington, D.C.

And I hope they’re paying close attention, because tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken.

From the Berkshires to Boston, from Springfield to Cape Cod, the voters of this Commonwealth defied the odds and the experts. And tonight, the independent majority has delivered a great victory.

I thank the people of Massachusetts for electing me as your next United States senator.

Every day I hold this office, I will give all that is in me to serve you well and make you proud.

Most of all, I will remember that while the honor is mine, this Senate seat belongs to no one person and no political party—and as I have said before, and you said loud and clear today, it is the people’s seat.

Interim Senator Paul Kirk has completed his work as a senator by appointment of the governor, and for the work he has done, I thank him. The people, by their votes, have now filled the office themselves, and I am ready to go to Washington without delay.

I also want to thank Martha Coakley for her call of congratulations. A hard contest is now behind us, and now we must come together as a Commonwealth.

This special election came about because we lost someone very dear to Massachusetts, and to America. Senator Ted Kennedy was a tireless and big-hearted public servant, and for most of my lifetime was a force like no other in this state. His name will always command the affection and respect by the people of Massachusetts, and the same goes for his wife Vicki. There’s no replacing a man like that, but tonight I honor his memory, and I pledge my very best to be a worthy successor.

I said at the very beginning, when I sat down at the dinner table with my family, that win or lose we would run a race which would make us all proud. I kept my word and we ran a clean, issues oriented, upbeat campaign—and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

When I first started running, I asked for a lot of help, because I knew it was going to be me against the machine. I was wrong, it was all of us against the machine. And after tonight we have shown everyone that—now—you are the machine.

I'm glad my mom and dad, brothers, sisters, and so many family members are here tonight.

Once again, before I go any further, I want to introduce somebody very special . . . That is my wife, Gail.

And as you know, my wife Gail couldn't join me on the campaign trail because of her work as a Boston TV journalist. But I will let you in on a little secret. She didn't stay neutral today, and she voted for the winner. I rely as always, on Gail's love and support and that of our beautiful daughters.

Arianna will be returning a day or two late to her pre-med studies at Syracuse, because she’s been giving her all to this campaign. As always, Arianna and her sister Ayla have been a joy to Gail and me, and we're so grateful to them both. Even before her campaign performances, millions of Americans had already heard Ayla’s amazing voice on “American Idol.” As Boston College basketball fans know, she’s also pretty good on the court.

If the President thinks they’ve got basketball talent at the White House, I ask him to pick his best teammate and find some time to play two-on-two with Ayla and me.

I’m grateful to all those from across Massachusetts who came through for me even when I was a long shot. I especially thank a friend who was there with encouragement from the very beginning, and helped show us the way to victory—former Governor Mitt Romney.

I’ll never forget the help of another man who took the time to meet with me months ago - who told me I could win, and gave me confidence for the fight. It was all so characteristic of a truly great and heroic American, and tonight I thank my new colleague, Senator John McCain.

On a night like this, when so many people mark your name on a statewide ballot, you think back to the first people who gave you a chance and believed. For the trust they placed in me, and for all they have taught me, I thank my neighbors and friends in my Senate district and especially my hometown of Wrentham. The cause and victory that all America has seen tonight started right there with all of you.

Let me tell you when I first got the feeling something big was happening in this campaign. It was when I was driving along and spotted a handmade, Scott Brown yard sign that I hadn’t actually put there myself.

This little campaign of ours was destined for greater things than any of us knew, and the message went far beyond the name on the sign.

It all started with me, my truck, and a few dedicated volunteers. It ended with Air Force One making an emergency run to Logan. I didn't mind when President Obama came here and criticized me—that happens in campaigns. But when he criticized my truck, that's where I draw the line.

We had the machine scared and scrambling, and for them it is just the beginning of an election year filled with surprises. They will be challenged again and again across this country. When there’s trouble in Massachusetts, there’s trouble everywhere—and now they know it.

In every corner of our state, I met with people, looked them in the eye, shook their hand, and asked them for their vote. I didn’t worry about their party affiliation, and they didn’t worry about mine. It was simply shared conviction that brought us all together.

One thing is clear, voters do not want the trillion-dollar health care bill that is being forced on the American people.

This bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes, hurt Medicare, destroy jobs, and run our nation deeper into debt. It is not in the interest of our state or country—we can do better.

When in Washington, I will work in the Senate with Democrats and Republicans to reform health care in an open and honest way. No more closed-door meetings or back room deals by an out of touch party leadership. No more hiding costs, concealing taxes, collaborating with special interests, and leaving more trillions in debt for our children to pay.

In health care, we need to start fresh, work together, and do the job right. Once again, we can do better.

I will work in the Senate to put government back on the side of people who create jobs, and the millions of people who need jobs—and as President John F. Kennedy taught us, that starts with an across the board tax cut for individuals and businesses that will create jobs and stimulate the economy. It's that simple!

I will work in the Senate to defend our nation’s interests and to keep our military second to none. As a lieutenant colonel and 30-year member of the Army National Guard, I will keep faith with all who serve, and get our veterans all the benefits they deserve.

And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation—they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country. What I've heard again and again on the campaign trail, is that our political leaders have grown aloof from the people, impatient with dissent, and comfortable in the back room making deals. And we can do better.

They thought you were on board with all of their ambitions. They thought they owned your vote. They thought they couldn’t lose. But tonight, you and you and you have set them straight.

Across this country, we are united by basic convictions that need only to be clearly stated to win a majority. If anyone still doubts that, in the election season just beginning, let them look to Massachusetts.

Fellow citizens, what happened in this election can happen all over America. We are witnesses, you and I, to the truth that ideals, hard work, and strength of heart can overcome any political machine. We ran a campaign never to be forgotten, and led a cause that deserved and received all that we could give it.

And now, because of your independence, and your trust, I will hold for a time the seat once filled by patriots from John Quincy Adams to John F. Kennedy and his brother Ted. As I proudly take up the duty you have given me, I promise to do my best for Massachusetts and America every time the roll is called.

I go to Washington as the representative of no faction or interest, answering only to my conscience and to the people. I’ve got a lot to learn in the Senate, but I know who I am and I know who I serve.

I’m Scott Brown, I'm from Wrentham, I drive a truck, and I am nobody’s senator but yours.

Thank you very much.

Michelle Malkin’s comments here are apt:

Scott Brown quite noticeably didn’t mention the word “Republican” once during his prepared remarks. . . .

As I’ve said for many years, the Republican Party needs to clean its own house before it demands that the Democrats clean theirs.

The Brown victory was very clearly a strike against machine politics of all kinds and business as usual in Washington. That includes top-down meddling by tired old GOP operatives. The party bosses have tried to install their preferred Senate candidates in Florida, Colorado, and California. They will use Brown’s win to argue for more “mooooooderation.” As I wrote yesterday in my analysis of how Brown unified a center-right-indie coalition, that is not the lesson of the Massachusetts miracle.

Sen.-elect Brown will be responsible to represent the people of Massachusetts on Capitol Hill, and the people of Massachusetts as a whole are significantly more conservative than the national GOP; as such, obviously, Sen. Brown will presumably be on the liberal end of the Senate Republican caucus, representing a center-right perspective. Given his campaign, one expects he’ll be more to the liberal side on social issues and more conservative on matters of economic and foreign policy. That’s fine. The most important thing is that he stay true to his campaign promises to oppose backroom dealing and machine politics—of both parties. That’s the biggest thing this country needs from its politicians right now, and the biggest service he can provide.

Mr. Brown Goes to Washington

Not an original line, I know, but too perfect anyway. For the first time since 1972, Massachusetts has elected a Republican to the Senate—and pretty convincingly; the seat had had Edward M. Kennedy's name engraved on it since the 1960s, but a formerly-little-known state senator named Scott Brown knocked off his designated Democratic successor, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, by a decisive margin (52.3%-46.7% with 92% of precincts reporting). Sarah Palin's Facebook note nails it, I think:

Congratulations to the new Senator-elect from Massachusetts! Scott Brown’s victory proves that the desire for real solutions transcends notions of “blue state” and “red state”. Americans agree that we need to hold our politicians accountable and bring common sense to D.C.

Recent elections have taught us that when a party in power loses its way, the American people will hold them accountable at the ballot box. Today under the Democrats, government spending is up nearly 23 percent and unemployment is higher than it’s been in a quarter of a century. For the past year they’ve built a record of broken promises, fat cat bailouts, closed-door meetings with lobbyists, sweetheart deals for corporate cronies, and midnight votes on weekends for major legislation that wasn’t even read. The good citizens of Massachusetts reminded Democrats not to take them for granted.

Americans cheered for Scott Brown’s underdog campaign because they viewed his candidacy as a vote against the Democrats’ health care bill. You know that there’s something wrong with this legislation when opposition to it inspired a Republican victory in a state that currently has no Republicans in Congress and last sent a Republican to the Senate nearly 40 years ago.

Clearly this victory is a bellwether for the big election night ten months from now. In the spirit of bipartisanship, let me offer some advice to the Democrats on how to stem this populist tide. Scrap your current health care bill and start from scratch. We all want true reform, but government mandated insurance is not it. Scott Brown campaigned against this top-down bureaucratic mess. We need common sense solutions like reforming malpractice laws, allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines, giving individual purchasers the same tax benefits as those who get coverage through their employers, and letting small businesses pool together to provide insurance for their employees. Focus your efforts on jobs, not on job-killing legislation. Such a change in approach would show Americans that you’re listening.

My best wishes to Senator-Elect Brown. When you go to Washington, may you never forget the ordinary citizens you met while driving that truck through the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

—Sarah Palin

Does this mean that Massachusetts has suddenly gone conservative? Not likely, though Brown ran a pretty conservative campaign, running against big government and ObamaPelosiCare; as Jay Cost has said, voter revolts of this sort are less about the agenda of the opposition party and more about voters looking for an alternative to the party in power. To quote Cost,

When the country is angry about the state of the union, and it feels that it's time for a change, it will vote for the opposition party as a "protest vehicle." Why? Because in our two-party system there is no place else for the people to go. They might not like the opposition, but it is a choice between them and the status quo. . . .

If it's a choice between the status quo and an opposition party that has disappointed in the past, sometimes circumstances demand the opposition. Historically speaking, that's simply a true statement. There have been multiple periods in our country's history when the people have swung back and forth between the parties, casting about for somebody—anybody—who could manage public affairs competently. The most violent swings came in the 1880s-1890s as the country struggled through the latter phases of the industrial revolution, but we saw a more recent one in 1974-1982. In both periods, neither side had given the people much reason for confidence, but that did not stop them from using both as "protest vehicles."

What this election says about Sen.-elect Brown's ability to hold the seat when the term expires in 2012 is, honestly, not all that much; if 2010 and 2012 play out for the GOP like 2006 and 2008 did for the Democrats, he'll probably win re-election, but under normal circumstances, there's no way he wins election from Massachusetts. For now, though, Scott Brown is playing Paul Revere, heralding a backlash against the Democratic Party and the way they've been governing since returning to power.

The interesting thing will be to see if the White House and the party establishment take that seriously and make substantive changes in the way they've been doing business. So far, it doesn't look like it; from their public comments, they seem determined to blame the defeat all on Coakley, and to refuse to consider the possibility that the President has lost his mojo. If their public face accurately reflects their private perceptions, November could indeed be a bloodbath for the Democrats, because their top leadership won't take the threat seriously until it's too late.

The risk for them is especially great given that Barack Obama went up to campaign for Coakley—the White House had initially decided that he wouldn't unless she was likely to win, in order to protect the President's political prestige; when he went up and gave a speech for her, lackluster though it may have been, he upped the ante. With her defeat, his image and credibility have taken a hit. If he and his advisors don't accept that fact, it's going to skew their perceptions of what they can accomplish politically, and how. That will only worsen the odds for Democratic candidates this fall.

All of which is to say, Scott Brown has proven himself a very impressive politician, and may well have a bright future despite being a Republican from Massachusetts; but he's less interesting for himself than for what he represents, and what his election may portend.

Not a good bargain

The notion that the IRS should be able to seize your assets if you don’t arrange your health care to the approval of the federal government represents the de facto nationalization of your body, which is about as primal an assault on individual liberty as one could devise.

—Mark Steyn

That captures the core issue here—and my most basic philosophical reason for opposing ObamaPelosiCare—about as well as can be done. Though Benjamin Franklin comes close:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Credit to the White House

This was a good and wise and humane decision:

extending temporary amnesty to Haitians who were illegally inside the U.S. before this week's catastrophic earthquake. Some 30,000 Haitians had been awaiting deportation but will now be allowed to stay in the U.S. and work for another 18 months. . . .

We hope even the most restrictionist voices on the right and in the labor movement will understand the humanitarian imperative. The suffering and chaos since the earthquake should make it obvious that Haiti is no place to return people whose only crime was coming to America to escape the island's poverty and ill-governance.

For that matter, we don't mind if they stay here permanently. Haitian immigrants as a group are among America's most successful, which demonstrates that Haiti's woes owe more to corruption, disdain for property rights and lack of public safety than to any flaw in its people. Their remittances to Haiti also help to sustain the impoverished population. Haitians received some $1.65 billion from overseas in 2006, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

The President and his advisors have reason to be proud of themselves.

To know nothing but the gospel

I heard a sermon recently which infuriated me, and the less said about what, where, and why, the better. It sparked a number of reflections, though, on which I've been chewing in the time since, so it wasn't a total loss. In particular, it provoked this thought: anything which is not the gospel can become an idol. Seriously, anything. Even good things, like love of country (as I've written more than once) or love of our family; even godly things, like faithfulness, or holy living, or salvation. Anything which is not the gospel—however close it might be to the gospel—can become an idol, because anything which is not the gospel can be made to be all about us, in one way or another. Only the gospel is purely about Jesus Christ; only the gospel focuses our attention entirely on him; only the gospel tells us that it isn't about us, it's all about God. It's only by making our churches all about the gospel that we can keep them free of the idolatries that will otherwise, inevitably, seep in. Any other focus makes idolatry inevitable, because if we have the opportunity to make church all about us, we'll take it. Every time.