God’s specialty: life out of death

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord:
look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.
For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places
and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.”

—Isaiah 51:1-3 (ESV)

There are a lot of folks in the church these days who are lamenting the state of American culture and saying pessimistic things about the future of this nation; I know this in part because there are days when I’m one of them.  I think, though, that we would do well to step back from that a bit and realize that while it certainly might well be all downhill from here for the USA, our pessimism on that point isn’t justified by our faith.  The unstated assumption behind that pessimism is that God can’t overcome the unrighteousness of Americans—and that just isn’t true.  On this point, we would do well to consider this passage from Isaiah, and think about it carefully.

“Listen to me,” says the Lord. “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek me; listen and look.” He’s addressing the faithful remnant within Israel—the people who are still seeking God and pursuing his righteousness, who have neither turned their backs on him nor rejected his servant. These are the ones who are willing to trust God—but even for them, it’s hard.  

Indeed, maybe for them it’s especially hard, despite their faith, because they see their people’s dire situation much more clearly than their more secular friends and relatives. They can see beyond Israel’s physical exile to their much deeper and more serious spiritual exile, the distance of the people’s hearts from God, and their consequent spiritual barrenness and deadness; they can see past the obvious difficulty of Israel’s deliverance to the real difficulty that underlies it, and so they worry—not that God is unable to deliver his people, or that he doesn’t care enough to do so, as other Israelites do, but that the faithlessness of their people will somehow sabotage everything in the end anyway. They trust God, but they know better than to trust his people.

To them, God says, “Listen to me: look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn.” A quarry is not a place of life; nothing comes out of it but dead stone. This is an apt metaphor to describe Abraham and Sarah, the father and mother of their people, for Sarah was barren, and both were far past childbearing age; even now, with our advanced technology, we don’t see 90-year-olds having children. When God says, “When I called Abraham, he was but one,” he’s not kidding; and yet, as God points out, “I blessed him and made him many.”

The very foundation story of the family that became the nation of Israel is a story of God bringing life out of barrenness and deadness; that sort of miraculous birth is at the core of their national identity. “Trust me even in this,” God is saying, “because I’ve done even this for my people before.” What is now a wasteland, he will make “like Eden”—and this doesn’t just mean physical life, but also spiritual life, for Eden isn’t merely a physical paradise, it’s the place before sin, and before the curse of God that fell on us because of our sin.

As such, we should think long and hard before concluding that anyone, or any nation, is too messed up and too spiritually dead for God to revive.  God spoke, and a 90-year-old woman had a baby; he spoke, and a virgin bore a son.  He spoke, and Jesus who had been crucified rose from the dead.  What can he not bring to life, if he decides to speak?

(Partially excerpted from “The Herald of Salvation”)

In defense of the citizen punditry

When the term-limits movement began, I was initially a big supporter of the idea. Over time, that changed, as it became apparent that the real effect of term limits for politicians is primarily to shift influence from elected officials to unelected staff and lobbyists; but I'm still a believer in the underlying principle, even if term limits are a bad way to realize it. We should not have a separate class of professional politicians; that undermines the very nature of representative government.

Our leaders are, in large part, representative of no class and no group but their own; while they retain some connection to the voters who elect them, they have shed any real identification with us, any real sense of belonging to and with us and being a part of us, in favor of their new class, their new group, their new culture. It's a class and a culture which has some resemblance to the country as a whole, including a roughly similar ideological spectrum from left to right, and so we can select people whose voting patterns are more or less congenial to our beliefs—but this doesn't mean that they share our cultural referents or that they actually think like the rest of us, and we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking they do. We should expect most politicians, even those with whom we most agree, to at least occasionally do something we find completely incomprehensible, because they're operating in a different reality than ours, with different priorities.

I don't know how we solve this; I don't even know that there is a solution. Happily, however, I believe we're seeing a solution arising for a linked problem: the hegemony of the professional punditocracy.

Just as I don't think there should be professional politicians, so I don't think we're better off for having professional pundits; I believe in citizen pundits just as I believe in citizen politicians, and for the same reasons. Living in the echo chamber does bad things to your understanding of the world. You can imagine the effect if the only mirrors you ever saw were funhouse mirrors—it would distort your vision and give you a false view of yourself and the world around you; the effect of becoming entirely a creature of the political inside is similar. Even the best of the pundit class suffer the effects of having no real perspective on the outside world.

Here, however, the Internet and the rise of the blogosphere is providing a counterweight. While I grant that the blogosphere can't simply supplant the news media because it is itself dependent on the work of professional reporters, and while Sturgeon's Law applies here as well as everywhere else (if anything, we might be lucky if as much as 10% of the stuff out there is worth reading), yet what Seattle sports blogger John Morgan says about sports media is true on a much broader scale:

There are two layers of media at work. A nascent shadow media of questionable reputability and standards that, ironically enough, actually pursues the truth, and an established media that reports naïve truth as it's fed to them.

I would argue that the best of our online commentators have already rendered most professional columnists and talking heads redundant. The MSM haven't realized this yet, of course—or they haven't admitted it if they have—and so folks like David Brooks, David Frum, Ellen Goodman, and Jeff Jarvis continue to wield influence; but at this point, they're only significant because people are still trained to think they're significant. They're already obsolete. The only thing keeping them in service is that their true obsolescence hasn't registered with most of the media consumers in this country . . . yet.

In their place we will see the continued rise of the citizen punditry. This is a development with significant downsides, no question, most notably the sort of vicious nastiness we see in the online comments on newspaper websites like that of the Anchorage Daily News. We've had, thanks in considerable part to the professionalization of the media, a period of relative sanity and civility in our political discourse. That's been unraveling for a while, though, and the growing deprofessionalization of our political commentary will likely only hasten that unraveling; given the behavior of the MSM in the last election, I don't see any reason to believe that they would be any better in the end.

Over against that, I think the proliferation of citizen pundits will in the end bring a sort of Wikipediazation to our political commentary. The free market doesn't work perfectly, but it works better than a command economy; what we currently have is something of a command economy of opinions, and as the free market of the Internet supersedes it, I think we'll see a more balanced commentariat emerge than what the MSM has given us for generations. Individual pundits may well be less fair and/or farther from the center (or maybe not, I don't know), but in the aggregate, I would bet that the result will provide a relatively even portrait of American politics. It's not that we'll have a neutral point of view (something which I don't believe exists anyway), but rather that each point of view will have its equal and opposite, which should make it easier to identify the truth among the competing claims.

Doing so will of course take work on the part of readers; but then, for readers who are willing to put in that work, this may well be the best part of all. It won't be as easy as simply believing what the newspapers tell them, but it will be far more satisfying . . . and far more free.

Remembering Louie

Three years ago today, Louie Heckert died from injuries suffered when he was attacked by a rogue bull moose.  Louie was a long-time member of the congregation I served in Colorado, and he was the most universally beloved man I have ever met.  He was the character in chief in a town full of them, but unlike so many of the others, he was a gentle and welcoming man who always seemed to have a good word for everyone he met.

I will never forget telling my oldest daughter, who was then five years old, that he had been hurt and was probably going to die; her face grew sad and solemn, and she said, “I like Mr. Louie. He’s a nice man; he gives me candy.” There are a lot of things people will remember about him, and the candy is certainly one that children of all ages will remember fondly. There are others that stick in my mind as well, like his standard response when I asked him how he was doing: “Can’t complain, and nobody’d listen if I did.” I knew he had to be joking, but he said it as seriously as he ever said anything, with that twinkle in his eye.  I wish I’d heard all his stories.  I wish I had a good enough memory to recall all the ones I did hear.  I’m glad I got the chance to get to know him.

After his death, folks in Grand Lake put a couple videos together, to help raise money to restore his old black Jeep and to advertise the town (something Louie would have considered an honorable tribute, given how much time and effort he put into advertising the town himself).  Here’s the shorter one, with just the song and the ad at the end; this is the inimitable pairing of Steve Cormey on guitar and vocals and Walter Holland, the Swiss Army Knife of woodwind players, on clarinet:

This is the longer video, with added interviews with Gene, John Cook, Cormey, and others:

Where does experience come from? Bad judgment

I haven't had anything to say about Levi Johnston's decision to exploit his inadvertent fame by going on national TV to trash his ex-fiancée, because I don't think there's all that much to be said, really, and because the folks at C4P have been doing a good job of saying it (here and here); this leaves me with a low opinion of the kid and a lower one of her sister (who does indeed seem to be jealous of Bristol Palin and glad that her brother's no longer engaged), but so what?  Something did occur to me, though, which I thought might be worth noting:  while I really don't care all that much about Johnston, being far, far more concerned about the Palin family, I do have to wonder—while all the attention's on what this kid's doing to his ex and her family, did any adult sit down and try to tell him what he'd be doing to himself?  Or did any adult in his life even think that far ahead?

Someone should have.  For the short term, this no doubt seems like a great idea to him—make some money, hurt his ex, hurt her parents while he's at it (since it appears they never cared for him much), get some attention.  But what about the long term?  What effect is this likely to have on his adult life?  It's hard to say for sure, but it can't be good.  This whole thing will blow over, the news cycle will move on, the PR effects will fade . . . and then the real meaning of his actions will set in.

Obviously, he's permanently alienated the mother of his son and her family, which is going to do bad things for his relationship with that son in the future; maybe he's shallow enough that that will never bother him, but while I think he's pretty shallow, I don't see any reason to believe he's that bad.  And whether he is or isn't, this is going to hang over any future relationships he might have; any woman who comes along is going to look at him as a man with a son from whose mother he's estranged because he took advantage of her and betrayed her.  Which is to say, if he wants to get married, have kids, etc., he's set up a heck of a hurdle for himself to get there.

Then there's the question of the wider consequences of his actions.  In Alaska, of course, he's a marked man—everybody knows who he is, and that's going to be the case for a long time.  There are probably those whose desire to bring down Sarah Palin is so great that his dishonorable behavior won't hurt him in their eyes . . . but before he goes and applies for a position on Hollis French's staff, he ought to consider that his evident immaturity, irresponsibility and bad judgment still won't recommend him for anything.  Folks like that want to use you, kid, not employ you; they see you as a tool, not someone on whom they want to rely (even if they thought you were actually reliable—a conclusion which your behavior to this point does not tend to support).

Meanwhile, those without a strong political animus against Gov. Palin will focus mainly on what this reveals about Johnston's character and judgment—and what it reveals isn't good.  For the rest of his life, he's going to be the guy who got a girl pregnant, dumped her, then went on national TV to make a quick buck trashing her.  That's the sort of thing that gives most people a built-in prejudice against you; it's the sort of thing that makes it hard to convince folks that you're trustworthy, responsible, and a man of integrity.  As such, it's the sort of thing that tends to work against your ability to get good jobs and make a good living; if you do get a job, it can be the sort of thing that makes people not want to do business with your employer.

And that's not just in Alaska, either.  It will be worst there, no doubt, but even if he leaves the state to get away from the stigma, this is the age of the Internet; anyone looking to hire him, or date him, or work with him, is going to Google him if they don't know who he is, and if they do that, it will all be there.  Those folks will have to ask themselves whether they want to be associated with the guy who got a girl pregnant, dumped her, then went on national TV to make a quick buck trashing her—and I suspect that not all that many people will.  Even if they like the political effect of his actions, the fact remains that he didn't do what he did because he was a deep-cover Democratic Party dirty-tricks specialist, he did it because he's an immature, low-character jerk (or something of that sort).  What he did before, he might very well do it again—and if you're associated with him, this time it might be your daughter, or someone else you care about.  As such, even those who like and appreciate his actions at a distance aren't likely to approve of them close up.

All of which is to say, there's likely to be fallout from this whole episode for many years into Levi Johnston's future, and there's no good reason to think that any of it will be positive.  I could always be wrong, but it seems to me that what Johnston has done is likely to make it harder for him to form another stable romantic relationship, harder for him to get a woman to trust him enough to stay with him, harder for him to get good jobs, and harder for him to keep them.  The support of political liberals for his actions will probably prove to be abstract, not translating into meaningful support for him at a personal level, while the animus of political conservatives will most likely be very concrete and very direct; those who judge him without regard to political concerns will find little good to say about him from his behavior in recent months.  I hope Tyra Banks paid him well for the ratings boost, and I hope he's smart enough to save most of it . . . I think he may need it.

Pride (in the name of love)

This video was produced, as far as I can tell, as an ad of sorts for the History Channel's show on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; it features John Legend's version of U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)"—which is a rare accomplishment: a cover of that song that's actually good—accompanied by footage and photos of Dr. King and other participants in the civil-rights movement.  Ad or otherwise, it's a worthy tribute.

Congratulations to the Spartan Nation

I root in all things for my Washington teams—the Seattle teams in the pros, the University of Washington, Gonzaga as well in basketball, and really, I'm usually happy to see Washington State do well, also—and of course for my alma mater, Hope College; but at the college level, I pull for Michigan State, too, since between my own extended family and my wife's family, I'm related to a large number of Spartans.  I have of course been cheering MSU on in the NCAA tournament this year (and especially since Purdue took out the Huskies, which made me quite unhappy)—I even called them beating Louisville, since I thought they matched up really well with the Cardinals, and I have great faith in Tom Izzo as a coach.  I figured, though, that Izzo would have to be content with his fifth Final Four in twelve years, since I didn't see them beating Connecticut (in fact, UConn was my pick to win it all); even with the home-court advantage, I figured the UConn front line would be too much for them.  I even expressed that belief to my father-in-law this morning.

I was wrong.  Michigan State 82, Connecticut 73.  Congratulations, Coach Izzo and the Spartans—and good luck against North Carolina Monday night.  They'll be your third straight #1 seed, which is quite a gauntlet to run . . . but I think you can take 'em.

Thought on prayer and the routine

Today was taken up with a trip down to Indianapolis.  On the way back, we saw two overturned semis—one by itself, one at the center of a multi-vehicle accident (in the lanes going the other direction) that had drawn upwards of a dozen emergency vehicles, all with lights going.  One of my daughters asked, after we passed the big one, why it had happened; I said I didn't know, but the comment was made that probably someone hadn't been paying attention.  There was a little red car, undamaged, stopped a short distance ahead of the accident, which made us wonder if perhaps that car had cut someone off or made a sudden move of some other sort, setting off a chain of events that made the semi swerve and overbalance, among other things—the sort of careless move that people make and get away with all the time, but this time at just the wrong moment to cause a tragedy.

We take so much for granted, most days.  We take for granted that we can drive wherever we need to go and get there and back safely—and if we don't, people call us worrywarts.  We take for granted that we can do whatever it occurs to us to do and it will all be okay, and that if we're a little careless, no harm will be done.  We may pray for God's protection as we travel or do other things—I had asked for prayer Wednesday for traveling mercies for us—but we do so lightly, more in the spirit of "just in case" than with any sense that it's actually important.  We take for granted that the routine and the mundane really is, of its essence, the routine and the mundane.

And it isn't, as the folks involved in that accident were reminded, and as we were reminded, passing by in the other direction.  It isn't at all.  There is always the possibility for the unexpected and the uncontrolled to intrude—and if, at any given point, that possibility may be quite low, it does build up after a while.  There's always more out of our control than we like to admit, and more variables (many more) than we can possibly track, and far more ways that things can go wrong than there are ways they can go right.  We expect routine good fortune, take it for granted, and consider ourselves ill-used when we don't get it, when we really ought to realize that even that much is a great gift, an act of God's grace.  It is, truly, no small thing to pray for traveling mercies—and no small blessing when our request is granted.  Every such answer to prayer is a victory over the chaos in our world; and every such victory should be taken seriously as reason for gratitude.

Franklin Graham likes Sarah Palin's coattails

I have an envelope sitting on my desk from Samaritan's Purse, the organization founded by Franklin Graham; on the outside, the envelope references two of the many projects in which they're involved:

Ministry in the Slums of Honduras

Feeding Families on the Alaska Frontier

Now, had you asked me in advance which of these two would get top billing, I would have figured from past experience that it would be Honduras, which sounds more exotic and a bigger deal.  Past fundraising appeals from Franklin Graham, whether for Samaritan's Purse or for his father's ministry, have featured evangelistic work in places like India for just that reason.  But no, Honduras is relegated to a small strip below the address window of the envelope.  Most of the front of the envelope is taken up with the mission to Alaska.

Why? My best guess in two words:  Sarah Palin.

Most of the right side of the front of the envelope, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the total space, is occupied by a picture of Graham standing next to Gov. Palin, both grinning (he looks very like his father in this shot), handing out a big box of food.  The picture dominates the envelope; the eye goes first to Graham, looking down into the box, then moves immediately to the Governor, because she's dressed in red and so stands out from the rest of the colors in the picture.  The message in this one is very clear:  Franklin Graham is allied with Sarah Palin—they're working together to minister to the people of Alaska.

Lest you think I'm overemphasizing this, I'm not.  Open the envelope and pull out the letter, the first thing you see is a different photo, filling the top half of the page, of Graham and Gov. Palin giving away another large box of food; the only major difference in composition is that Graham is significantly closer to the camera and therefore looms larger.  Gov. Palin is still dead-center in the shot, and her red still draws the eye.  The caption, at the top of the page, reads, "EMERGENCY FOOD:  Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and I delivered much-needed boxes of food to native families in the wilderness of western Alaska."  In the text of the letter, the governor's office is mentioned in the second paragraph, she's mentioned by name—and praised in strong terms—in the third, and the entire fourth paragraph is her praise of Samaritan's Purse.

In other words, one of the main things this letter wants you to take away is that Gov. Palin loves Franklin Graham and Samaritan's Purse, and that they're allies in ministry.  This is, of course, a fundraising letter, so what this tells you is that Graham and his staff think that invoking her name is a good way to get people to give money—and that's no small judgment, because these folks are past masters at this craft.  When most folks think of Billy Graham, they don't think of him as a fundraiser, but all those crusades cost a great deal of money; who exactly was responsible for raising it initially I don't know, but over the years, that's one of the areas at which the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has gotten very, very good.  If they think Gov. Palin's picture and imprimatur will help them raise money from the sort of folks who support them, they're no doubt right.

Why does this matter?  Well, besides the fact that Samaritan's Purse is a good ministry that will do a great deal of good work with that money, it also matters because those same folks make up a sizable chunk of the Republican base—and for that matter, the Blue Dog wing of Democratic voters, many of whom now self-identify as Palin Democrats.  The calculation of Franklin Graham and the development folks at Samaritan's Purse with regard to Gov. Palin's probable effect on their fundraising isn't a political one, but it has political implications; at its root, it's the same calculation Saxby Chambliss made when he invited Gov. Palin to be the closer for his campaign in the runoff election for Senate in Georgia:  Sarah Palin has big coattails.  She inspires a lot of people across this country, and if she supports someone or something, that will encourage many, many other folks to do the same—with votes, time, money, whatever.  Whether it's "Vote for Saxby" or "give money to Samaritan's Purse," if she says it, millions of people take it a lot more seriously than if someone else says it.  That matters.  It matters a lot.

This also matters because it's a good gauge that all the Democratic efforts to smear this woman aren't really working.  Sure, they're no doubt serving to fire up the Party faithful, but outside of the elite echo chambers where people pull out lines to convinced each other of things of which they're both already convinced, when it comes to actually changing the minds of the citizenry, they aren't taking root.  For all the work the Democrat smear machine is putting into breaking her image as someone of high morals and ethics, that's clearly how most people in this country think of her, or else her support wouldn't be this useful to an evangelical ministry like Samaritan's Purse; they clearly don't see her as damaged goods, or they wouldn't be parading her support the way they are.

One might also point out that it matters because it means that Graham and his staff have a better feel for the political realities in this country right now, even without trying, than the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the various other party organs that exist inside that great echo chamber of the DC-NY corridor.  Were that not the case, the NRSC and NRCC would have hung on and waited for her to agree to attend their event (as she probably would have done) when she could do so at an appropriate point, rather than turning to Newt Gingrich as a speaker.

The bottom line is that this fundraising letter is just one more piece of evidence of Sarah Palin's extraordinary appeal and connection to a vast swath of the American populace; Palin Power is a very real thing, and the folks at Samaritan's Purse clearly judged it well worth their while to make a deliberate and intentional effort to tap into it.  (Which, since she supports and appreciates their efforts, was an entirely appropriate and valid thing for them to do.)  The sooner the national GOP starts doing so as well in an intelligent way—namely, without asking her to tap-dance to their tune for the privilege—the better off they'll be.

Update:  When I posted this, I was so focused on the letter that I wasn't thinking about the trip it recounts, so I didn't link to the post Joseph Russo put up on that trip at the time.  That omission is now corrected.  It's particularly significant because that post sparked people to donate to Samaritan's Purse in honor of Gov. Palin, which probably contributed to their decision to highlight the trip.

Problem solved

OK, the Internet issues here at the house have been resolved—apparently, Embarq had a problem which was affecting a lot of people here in the area (because of the flooding, someone said) which they've now been able to repair.  It's good to have this working again.

John O'Sullivan sees Margaret Thatcher in Sarah Palin

Thanks to Joseph Russo for posting the link to this—it's a great piece.  (Since it's 1 AM and I can't sleep, I also appreciate my computer working well enough so I could read it.)  O'Sullivan writes,

I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common. . . .

Mrs. Palin has a long way to go to match [the world-historical figure who today is the gold standard of conservative statesmanship]. Circumstances may never give her the chance to do so. Even if she gets that chance, she may lack Mrs. Thatcher's depths of courage, firmness and stamina—we only ever know such things in retrospect.

But she has plenty of time . . . to analyze America's problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter's speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That's the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

Mrs. Palin had four big occasions in the late, doomed Republican campaign: her introduction by John McCain in Ohio, her speech at the GOP convention, her vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, and her appearance on Saturday Night Live. With minimal preparation, she rose to all four of them. That's the mark of a star.

If conservative intellectuals, Republican operatives and McCain "handlers" can't see it, then so much the worse for them.

John O'Sullivan knows whereof he speaks.  Check it out.

A few tips of the hat

We're having some internet problems here—no connection at the church today at all, and a pretty poor one here at home—so I haven't had much success with any online work; but I thought I might be able to get a relatively quick links post through.

Jared Wilson has a couple strong posts up, "The Kingdom is For Those Who Know How to Die" and "Faith, Hope, and Love is About Proximity to Jesus." I've also been meaning to note his excerpt from Skye Jethani's new book The Divine Commodity, which I think dovetails with my recent post on worship.

Not to leave the rest of the Thinklings out, Philip has a good post on communicating the gospel, Bird makes a good point about repentance, and Bill asks an interesting question:  is the American church actually too macho?

I love Hap's retelling of the story of Abigail.  If you're not familiar with it, you can find the original in 1 Samuel 25.

Pauline Evans, to whom I haven't linked in far too long, has a nifty little post up on the development of computers, and how the comparisons we use are in some ways quite misleading; she also has one up, I just discovered, on a couple children's fantasy books that I think I'm going to need to read.  (This may follow nicely on our recent discovery in this household of Tamora Pierce.)

Debbie Berkley posted something last January that I've kept meaning to write about, reflecting on the uncertainty we face these days in the light of the wisdom of a fellow Christian from India:  "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."  Sage counsel, and certainly no less applicable now, two months on.

And, on the subject of politics (and specifically political dirty tricks), Andrew Breitbart has had some interesting things to say of late about the online war liberals are waging (and winning) against conservatives.  Barack Obama promised to elevate the tone of political discourse in this country, but you don't have to be a Sarah Palin supporter to recognize that some of his followers didn't get the memo.

This isn't everyone I'd like to mention, but I'm only linking to pages I can actually pull up, and it's pretty hit-and-miss at the moment.  Still, I'm glad to note these, and maybe I'll do another one soon to highlight the ones that wouldn't come up.

Question on the twilight of the newspapers

This story on Hot Air (about an intelligent new strategy the Minneapolis Star-Tribune is trying to keep themselves afloat) got me thinking:  why all the liberal angst about newspapers going out of business?  Just think of the environmental benefits!  Think of all the trees cut down every year to produce the reams and reams of newsprint used by the newspapers that are now critically endangered (as well as the ones that have already gone extinct); how environmentally unenlightened of these heartless major corporations to insist that they must be allowed to distribute "a five-pound lump of paper" to millions of people every day in order to do their jobs.  Surely in this Age of Obama they should be required to Go Green just like everyone else and spare our nation's forests, right?  Shouldn't we view the demise of dead-tree editions across the country as a good thing, rather than go looking for ways to prop up their environmental rapacity by putting them on the public dole?

. . . OK, be honest with me—is that too far over the top?  In all seriousness, I love a good newspaper (though they're a lot fewer and farther between than those lamenting the state of the industry like to pretend), but it does occur to me that they're getting a very different break from the Left in this country than a lot of industries.  That's no real surprise, of course; after all, they're a structural component of the American Left, plus they get to set the terms in which their current peril is reported, analyzed, and discussed—an advantage that was never given to the PR flacks for companies like Philip Morris or Enron.  Even so, as I think about it, I'm still a little surprised that I haven't heard word one about what their failure could potentially do to pulp production in this country, either in terms of its environmental advantages or in terms of additional unemployment.  I can't help thinking that if there were somehow an equivalent failure on the conservative side of the political spectrum, we'd be getting stories with headlines like "Silver Lining of Industry Collapse:  Will Save Millions of Acres of Forest, Experts Say."

I have to admit, this makes me smile

I've been a fan of Law & Order almost since its inception.  Like most folks, my favorite characters over the show's life are the two big ones, Det. Lenny Briscoe (Jerry Orbach, RIP) and EADA/DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston); part of that, probably, is that both actors have always struck me as people I'd enjoy knowing in real life, quite aside from the people they play.  Also like most folks, my favorite character after those two was ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), whom I really wish had had a significantly longer run on the show (especially as I didn't care for her replacement at all)—which meant it was a very pleasant surprise (dare I pull a Chris Matthews and say a thrill ran up my leg?) to read that she's a fan of Sarah Palin:

I admire any kind of woman like her. My whole motto is to know what I stand for and know what I don't stand for and have the courage to live my life accordingly and she does exactly that. The fact that this woman has made the decisions she's made and literally lived her life according to that and takes heat for it is absolutely disgusting to me," she added. "People cannot look at this woman. I really think they're afraid of her and her morals, ethics and values and the fact that she hangs on them.

Of course, Fox News felt the need to conclude the article with a bunch of celebrities telling them how wonderful Barack Obama is and what a great job he's doing; but Angie Harmon got the bulk of the piece to praise Gov. Palin (and also to express her dissatisfaction with President Obama, and with being accused of racism for not being liberal), and that's an enjoyable little spark for the day.

HT:  Joseph Russo

Reader's guide: in defense of the church

As I noted in the post immediately below, I started this series last year and forgot about it after August, but I don't want to let it drop; this is too important.

Part I: Preaching

Part II: The institution

Part III: Doctrine

Part IV: Jesus

Part V:  Process

Part VI:  We need each other

In defense of the church, part VI: We need each other

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

—Hebrews 10:19-25 (ESV)

On a nobler and more elevated note than the previous post . . .

I started doing this series over a year ago now, carried on for a while, and then some time last August, had my attention fixed firmly enough in another direction that I forgot completely about it.  (Gee, I wonder what could have done that?)  I don't want to just let it go, though, because this is too important for that.

I've talked about various aspects of the church—the value of preaching, the realistic necessity of the institution, and so on—and about the fact that Jesus loves the church, whether we like it or not; I think it also needs to be said, as the authors of Hebrews do, that whether we like the church or not, we need it.  If we're going to be faithful disciples of Christ, we need to be a part of the church, and we need to be involved.

Part of this is that, as David Wood argues, we need spiritual friendship in order to live as Christ calls us to live.  Not even Jesus tried to live the godly life on his own—he surrounded himself with good friends who went with him everywhere.  The Rev. Wood makes this point in the course of talking about the pastoral life and pastoral excellence, but if it's more critical for pastors, that's only because we serve as leaders and exemplars for the church; this is necessary for pastors because it's necessary for all Christians if we're actually going to live as Christians.

This is how God wired us:  for friendship, relationship, community, to lean on each other and depend on each other to be strong where and when we ourselves are weak.  We need others who know us well enough that they can help us see ourselves more clearly and accurately than we can through our own eyes, and whom we can trust to rebuke and correct us when we're going awry.  And let's face it, resisting temptation is a lot less fun in the moment than giving in to it; we need people whose company we enjoy with whom we can go find something else to do.  "Just say no" only works for so long—we need something better to which we can say "yes" instead.

This is well illustrated by an old story, which has been told in many variations, of a young man who was feeling spiritually dry and cold, and so went to see one of the great old saints of the church to seek advice.  He poured out his heart to the old saint, told him of his problem, and asked what he might do about the dryness and coldness of his spiritual life.  The old man didn't say a word, but picked up the fireplace tongs and used them to reach into the fire and pluck out a coal, which he set on the hearth.  The coal immediately began to fade, first from bright cherry-red to dull red, to orange, and ultimately to black.  After a little while, the old saint leaned forward, picked up the coal with his hand, and tossed it back into the fire, where it was soon burning merrily once again.  The young man, with a thoughtful look on his face, thanked the old man and took his leave.

It's not just about what we get out of being a part of the church, though—we also need the church for what we can give to it.  For our own growth, we need the opportunity to serve others as they serve us.  This helps us develop our gifts, stretching us to take risks and try new things.  More importantly, it draws us out of ourselves and teaches us to value and care for others.  We can't become loving people without actually loving people—and the people who are the hardest to love are often the most important for us in that respect, for it's in loving the unlovable that we come closest to Christ's love for us.

Finally, of course, the fact that the church needs us matters in and of itself, too.  God calls us to serve him, and part of that is participating in and serving his body, his people, the church.  Yes, this means setting aside some of what we want; it means making compromises, and putting other people ahead of ourselves.  This too, of course, is part of our spiritual growth, but it's also the recognition that the call of God on our lives isn't just about us, about fulfilling our needs and giving us what we want—it's also about others, and how we can be of use to bless them.

Now, I'm not so foolish as to think that this will necessarily come easily; I'm a pastor, I know better.  But what I said in the first post in this series still holds true:

I don't stay in the church because I have found it to be a wonderful place and a wonderful experience; taken all in all, I've found it quite uneven. Rather, I stay in the church as an act of faith that God meant what he said when he called us his people, his family, his body, and promised that not even the gates of Hell would prevail against us—and I say that as one who knows full well that those gates threaten us from within as well as from without. However ambivalent I may sometimes be, it remains true through all that Jesus loves the church, and died for her, and that we are called to follow his lead.

All of which is to say, as much as I understand the stones people throw at the church (having fired off a few myself at times), I do believe the church needs to be defended; and I say that not because I'm in the business, of the guild, as it were, but rather despite that fact. However badly we screw it up, as we often do, this is still something God has ordained, and it's still important that we gather together in worship and fellowship and ministry. Yes, that means friction, which is unpleasant; but that friction is one of the things God uses to sand away our rough edges and polish our strengths. True community—where, as Kurt Vonnegut beautifully said, "the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured"—is not an easy thing, which is why far too many churches don't try all that hard to create it; but for all that, it's important for our well-being, and if we will commit to it, it's a beautiful gift of God.

There are days . . .

This is right up there with wanting the James Bond car so that one could drop oil slicks or caltrops for tailgaters.  Excessive, yes, but on our worse days, the thoughtlessness of others can drive us to wishing, just a little, that we could actually do something like this.  At least, for some of us, it can . . .  Check the mouseover on this one.

The problematic blessings of God

Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations,
and raise my signal to the peoples;
and they shall bring your sons in their bosom,
and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders.
Kings shall be your foster fathers,
and their queens your nursing mothers.
With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you,
and lick the dust of your feet.
Then you will know that I am the Lord;
those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.”

—Isaiah 49:22-23 (ESV)

The Jews get a lot of flak from many Christians for their failure to understand what God was trying to do and thus to fulfill the part in his plan. Now, obviously someone who believes as I do that Jesus is the promised Messiah is going to have a different take on that than someone who doesn’t; but without getting into comparative theology, I think it needs to be said that we should all be a lot humbler about such arguments. Many of us (perhaps most of us) have an unfortunate tendency to present our positions as if their truth is obvious, and should be obvious to those who disagree with us—meaning, of course, that we’re the noble ones who have the truth, and our opponents must be arguing for ignoble reasons. This is not only wrongheaded, it’s wrong-spirited.

What’s more, in some cases, it’s also evidence of our own lack of self-knowledge and self-awareness; and this would be one of those. Consider this section of Isaiah (which is representative of other passages in the prophets): God is proposing to bless his people by bringing in the nations to join them. In order to accept this blessing, they need to do two things: one, they have to give up their national self-understanding—what we might, by analogy to the present day, call “Israelite exceptionalism”—and two, they have to welcome the other peoples of the world in.

Now, to be sure, God isn’t asking Israel to take a secondary place; quite the contrary, the nations will honor them and bow before them in recognition of how much they owe the people of Israel. That said, remember, the nations are outsiders, and some of them are bitter enemies; he’s asking them to welcome strangers, rivals, and people who have hurt them badly into their land and into their people.  He’s asking them not only to forgive their enemies, but to adopt their enemies, to welcome former enemies into their home, to love them, and to trust them as family.

That’s a challenge, if we’re honest.  If we really put ourselves into the story, it’s not necessarily all that obvious that it really qualifies as a blessing.  After all, we’re used to thinking of blessings as being for us, while the blessing Isaiah promises here is as much for the nations as it is for Israel; God blesses Israel in part so that they may bless the nations.  To recognize this as a real blessing, we need to understand that this is what the blessings of God look like—they really never are just for us.  We aren’t merely recipients of his blessings, we’re conduits.  That’s just how God works.

God’s blessings often aren’t easy to receive.  Grace isn’t easy.  Love isn’t easy.  They come with challenges, asking us to do things that we don’t necessarily want to do.  I would venture to say that anyone who takes them lightly, who isn’t made at least a little uncomfortable by the blessings of God, doesn’t understand them as well as they should.  I’m certainly not saying that we should encourage anyone not to accept the grace of God; but if we find anyone reluctant to do so, we should understand that their reluctance is not altogether unreasonable.  God’s blessings are always best for us . . . but they’re often not what we think is best for us, and so we have to give up our own ideas of what’s best in order to accept them.  Doing so is itself a blessing—but we should never make the mistake of thinking that it’s an easy and obvious step.

Just to get your feet tapping a little

I was keeping our littlest one happy yesterday afternoon after she woke up, still sick, from her nap; for whatever reason, one way I did that was by playing her a few CCR videos, and I got a couple of their songs stuck in my head.

And the best song ever written about baseball:

In Christ alone my hope is found

John Piper doing what he does best—preaching the gospel:

HT:  Shane VanderHart

The limits of the merely human

This from Ray Ortlund:

Everything man-made lets us down. Sooner or later, everything man-made reveals its hidden weaknesses. Only Christ will not fail. Only Christ does all things well. I don't. You don't. Christ does. Always. Infallibly. . . .

Man-made things go boom. They cannot be trusted. Respected, yes. Honored, yes. But not trusted.

The only unfailing object of our trust and hope is Christ himself. Theological systems have their uses, but also their limits. Christ, Christ, Christ—the risen, living, present Person of the Lord Jesus Christ who is right here right now and always will be, forever keeping his promises—only he has no limits, only he cannot disappoint.

Amen.  The wellspring of our thought must always be Christ; as theologians, we must always be biblical theologians first and foremost, and as preachers, we must be teaching our people to be biblical theologians, and the center and taproot of our biblical theology must always be hearing the voice of Christ and the word of the gospel in every part of Scripture.

And it should be said, this applies to every aspect of life—to political systems, and politicians, for instance, no less than theological systems and theologians.  Even the best political systems, though they have their uses, have also their limits; even the best politicians have their weaknesses and will let us down.  We must seek to find and promote the best we can, systems and politicians alike, but always remembering that only Christ will not fail, only Christ has no limits, only Christ cannot disappoint . . . and the corollary, that there are many things that cannot be done well through political means and processes, but only by the body of Christ, whom he empowers for his purposes by his Holy Spirit.

To lure independents, nominate a conservative?

In yesterday's open thread on HillBuzz, the poster made an interesting argument that I've been mulling ever since:

We don’t believe Republicans can win the White House with a moderate—they need a conservative, and should not try to court moderate Democrats like us. Paradoxical, we know, but hear us out. We believe Independents don’t know what to do with a moderate Republican like McCain . . . there isn’t a clear line of distinction between Republican and Democrat in that case, so Independents don’t see a good choice to make, and seem to default vote Democrat in that case. But, those Independents had no trouble voting for Bush . . . and Republican turnout for Bush in 2004 was higher than it was for McCain in 2008. Without Palin, a true conservative, that turnout would have been dismal.

As fellow Palinites, those folks are of course offering this in support of the proposition that Sen. McCain did considerably better with Gov. Palin on the ticket than he would have if he'd picked someone else—something which I argued last summer would be the case and am convinced was indeed the case, despite the MSM's best efforts to bring her down.  As someone whose political convictions are fairly described as conservative, I of course believe already that the GOP ought to nominate a conservative for the White House next time rather than a moderate.  As such, the perception-of-intelligence problem (our tendency to judge as "intelligent" anyone who comes up with a good argument for what we already believe, or want to believe) is clearly in play here.  The fact that I have, and know I have, a predilection for counterintuitive arguments such as this only reinforces that.  So as I read this, I have to try to filter all those things out.

Having done my best to do so, however, this still makes sense to me—and the evidence, such as we have, does seem to bear it out.  When, after all, was the last time a Republican won running as a moderate?  Wouldn't it be Eisenhower in 1956?  Broadly speaking, Nixon ran as a conservative in 1968 (talking about the "silent majority"), George H. W. Bush ran as a conservative in 1988 ("Read my lips:  No new taxes")—before losing in 1992 after his time in office proved him nothing of the sort—and George W. Bush ran as a conservative in 2000.  Reagan, of course, inarguably was a conservative, if a rather more pragmatic one than many sometimes remember.   Meanwhile, even if you don't blame Gerald Ford for his loss in 1976, the Republican Establishment types didn't do much in 1996 or 2008.

The first read, anyway, does seem to suggest that independents are more likely to vote for a conservative Republican than for a moderate Republican, at least at the national level; this thesis seems to me to support further investigation even if I do find it appealing.  Not being a statistician (except for a certain amateur interest when it comes to sports), I have no idea how to investigate this to see if it stands up to more rigorous examination—but I hope someone puts in the work, and if so, I'll be interested to see their conclusions.

What our gaffes reveal about our character

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart
his mouth speaks.

—Luke 6:45 (ESV)

Michael Kinsley somewhere defined a gaffe as “what happens when the spin breaks down.”  It’s a wry observation that captures a real truth about why gaffes matter:  because they reveal something about a given politician that said politician doesn’t want us to see.  They’re the places where the mask slips.  That may not always be true, and the real meaning of a particular gaffe may not always be the one that first comes to mind, but in general, these are meaningful moments that tell us more about our politicians than our politicians will usually tell us about themselves.

The highest-profile gaffe of recent weeks, of course, is the president’s “Special Olympics” quip on The Tonight Show, which (much to the administration’s chagrin) turned out to be the rimshot heard ’round the world, despite the best efforts of his sycophants to wave it away as meaningless.  We know better than that, these days; we know gaffes are meaningful, and so by and large, we haven’t bought that line.  At the same time, though, what I haven’t seen is much thoughtful reflection on what Barack Obama’s gaffe does mean—most of the commentary has only been interested in its political significance (and on increasing or decreasing that significance, as it suits the one offering the comment).

An exception to that is John Stackhouse’s recent post, probably because it’s not just about the president—it’s also a reflection on his own gaffes:

We have to cut each other a little slack: people under stress sometimes do inexplicable things, including making tasteless jokes or using inappropriate language.

But I’m not inclined to let myself entirely off the hook, however forgiving I might feel toward President Obama or any other public figure. I recall the words of Jesus: “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

That joke came from somewhere. That word came from somewhere. . . .

Yes, we live in a sarcastic and vulgar culture . . . It is part of the air we breathe and the toxins enter us whether we like them or not.

Again, recognizing that kind of constant cultural influence should help me be more understanding and forgiving of others who screw up in public.

Nonetheless, it is simply true that sometimes I really do mean what I say. Sigmund Freud was prone to overstatement, but there is more than a grain of truth in his dictum, “There is no such thing as a joke.” And as I search my heart for the attitudes expressed in this joke or that word choice, I confess I am sometimes dismayed at what I find. . . .

Sometimes, alas, the way you really do think about things and the way you really do talk about things—that is, the way you think and talk when you think no one can hear or no one will be offended—really does come out in public.

Kyrie eleison—Lord, have mercy.

And may we attend to what we have inadvertently exposed in our gaffes. It’s good to get forgiveness. It’s better to get healed.

I believe we’re right to ask what the president’s wisecrack tells us about the abundance of his heart; but as we do so, we’d best not get too cocky; we’d best proceed with all due humility, and ask ourselves what we’d let slip about our own hearts if we were in his shoes.  And perhaps we’d also do well to bear in mind the counsel of the book of James:

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

—James 3:1 (ESV)

Here's a noteworthy admission

God bless them. . . .  Over 50 million people voted for me and Sarah Palin—
mostly for Sarah Palin.

—John McCain

That, courtesy of CNN's PoliticalTicker blog, was one of Sen. McCain's comments today at the Heritage Foundation.  It's a remarkable comment—remarkably honest, I think, and really remarkably gracious, too; it reminds me again of all the things I really do like about the man, for all the issues I have with him.

No matter how far you run, the Father's heart goes farther

Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace,
nor are your best days ever so good that you are beyond the need of it.

—Jerry Bridges

That summarizes the message of Luke 15 about as succinctly as anyone ever has.  It’s unfortunate that the crowning parable of that chapter is usually referred to as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” because the reality is, both sons are lost.  One betrayed his father publicly and abandoned him physically, while the other betrayed him privately and abandoned him internally, but each in his own way was a prodigal, in desperate need of grace; neither realized it or asked for it until it was offered (no, the younger son didn’t come home repentant, but in hope of earning his way back into the family), but the father offered it to both of them anyway.  As he always does, whether we want him to or not.  Such is the gospel.

HT:  Of First Importance

This is what a political cannonization looks like

and no, that's not a misspelling; British MEP Daniel Hannan definitely broke out the rhetorical cannons for this one, and his aim was unerring.  The Aged P called this a "very polite and beautifully enunciated assassination," and he's right; to his description I would only add "devastating," because it's that, too.  Here in the U.S., Republicans like Aaron Schock ought to be taking notes, because most of what MEP Hannan said to PM Gordon Brown could be said with equal point to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and others in the Obama/Pelosi administration.

We should have seen Sarah Palin coming

When I started this blog, I lived in a small town in the Colorado Rockies—and when I say "small," I mean it; to give you an idea, there are more students in my oldest daughter's new elementary school than there are people living in Grand Lake.  (Full-time, anyway.)  If you've never lived in a small town in the mountains, you need to understand that it's a different world up there.  You might have the idea that mountain towns are full of colorful characters, and it's true; they also tend to be fiercely independent, even more fiercely stubborn, and not always so good at compromising and playing nice with others.  As I've written before, the downside of that is that you tend to get communities that range from mildly dysfunctional to complete trainwreck towns like Leadville was (and maybe still is, for all I know).

I'm not just going on my own experience in saying this, either; during my five years up there, I compared notes fairly frequently with other mountain pastors, because we were all dealing with similar issues that our flatlander colleagues just didn't understand.  All our communities were different, to be sure, but we shared common root issues and struggles.  Our town made the headlines twice during my five years there:  once when one of our residents sought redress for his grievances against the county's commercial hub in the cockpit of the 60-ton Komatsu D355 bulldozer that he'd turned into a 75-ton tank, and once when our church's oldest and most-beloved member died of an unprovoked attack by a rogue bull moose, something which really isn't normal moose behavior.  None of my colleagues had anything quite that out of the ordinary happen, but they all had some pretty strange stories of their own; that's just how it is in the mountains.  Or as my organist from Colorado would say, that's life in a tomato can.

All of this is the reason why I found myself starting to write in an e-mail yesterday, "If there's a Patrick Henry left in this country, he lives somewhere in the Rockies"; but as I wrote that, I suddenly remembered how many of our most characteristic people—the sort of folks who were still climbing fourteeners in their eighties and musing that when they died, they'd have their bodies autoclaved and set out to fertilize the roses—spent significant time in Alaska every year, and/or had lived there in the past and loved it.  It occurred to me that outside of Anchorage and Juneau, the spirit of our little mountain towns, which is the spirit of the old frontier folks who just had to get out from under the conformity of society, is also very much alive and well in Alaska.  (Maybe even in Anchorage and Juneau to some degree.)

That having occurred to me, I suddenly realized that that said something very important about Gov. Palin.  Her emergence was a complete shock to most of the Washington elite—of both parties, which is why she took some heavy hits from many who should have had her back—but it shouldn't have been; the fact that it was says a lot more about them than it does about her.  I don't say that we should have expected someone as purely gifted as Sarah Palin to appear on the scene, because she's a once-in-a-generation political talent (yes, I think she's a level beyond Barack Obama in that respect, for all his evident gifts as a campaigner), but in a more general way, we really should have seen her coming.  In particular, the very elites who were so scandalized by her arrival on the landscape should have seen her coming, if they were actually doing their jobs.

Why?  Well, what is the Republican base looking for?  Another Reagan—and by that I don't just mean a "real conservative."  Newt Gingrich was more conservative than Reagan, and I don't believe we're looking for another Newt (or even the return of the first one, though many folks would accept that in a pinch).  No, the base is looking for a common-sense, common-folks, common-touch conservative, someone who's conservative not merely pragmatically or even philosophically but out of an honest respect for and empathy with the "ordinary barbarians" of this nation; we're looking for someone who understands why Russell Kirk, the great philosopher of American conservatism, lived his entire adult life not in one of the media or academic centers of this country, but in rural Mecosta County, Michigan (the next county south of where my in-laws live)—and who understands that that fact has everything to do with his conservatism.  We're looking for someone whose conservative principles are anchored in the bedrock of this nation, and who understands our conservatism not merely as an intellectual exercise, but out of shared life experience and a common worldview.

That, I think, is why George W. Bush won the GOP nomination in 2000, because he projected that—and indeed, he has many of those qualities; he just wasn't all that conservative, and so he disappointed many.  For all the Texas in him, he still had too much of Harvard and D.C. in him, too, and so was too prone to play by the rules of the political elite.  It's telling that the great success of his second term (the surge) came from standing up, not to the mandarins of his own party—some of them, yes, but they were balanced somewhat by John McCain, who'd been arguing for the surge for years—but to the senior leaders of the U.S. military, whom he could approach on very different terms.  He could tell the Joint Chiefs to shut up and soldier; he doesn't seem to have had it in him to do so to the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, and the White House correspondents, and in that lay much of the malformation of his presidency.

The problem is that the qualities the GOP base is seeking aren't qualities which are rewarded by the political process in most places; in most of this country, to achieve the kind of prominence and to compile the kind of record that are necessary to justify a run for the White House, it's necessary to compromise those qualities.  To get to Washington, you must increasingly become like Washington—that's just how the political process works across most of this country.

The exception to that—the only great exception I can think of—is the remaining frontier communities in the American West; and of those, it may well be that the only one that's really large enough for anyone to rise to political prominence without extensive exposure to the elite political culture in America is Alaska.  I don't hold our mountain communities up as any sort of ideal—I know well from experience that they're no Shangri-La—and I'm not going to try to do so for Alaska, either; but if anyone in this society was ever going to rise to political prominence as a true champion of conservative ideals, of the spirit of us "ordinary barbarians," without being co-opted and corrupted by the spirit and outlook of the political elite, it was going to have to be from someplace like Alaska.  We aren't going to get another Reagan from Massachusetts, or Minnesota, or Arkansas, or Florida; from Alaska, we have a chance.  The fact that few in the elite would be likely to take such a person seriously is actually part of the point, since they didn't take Reagan seriously either; the revolt against elite opinion (which is not, mind you, the same thing as populism, for all that many in the MSM confuse the two) is part of what the base wants, and someone willing to lead it and stick to it is one of the qualifications.

All of which is to say, we might not have predicted specifically the remarkable and gifted woman who is governor of Alaska, or that she would arrive on the scene exactly when she did (though as bizarre as the 2008 presidential election was, when would have been a likelier time?), but we should have expected someone to come out of Alaska, and probably fairly soon.  The "can anything good come out of Nazareth?" sort of incredulous reaction that we got from so many in the punditocracy was not only unjustified, it was a clear sign of their myopia, that they're so burrowed in to being insiders that they're largely incapable of looking out the window to see what's going on outside.  The GOP base wants another Reagan, and won't be truly happy until it has one; and where else could such a figure come from?

Update:  Welcome to all of you coming over from C4P and HillBuzz—it's good to have you drop by.  The moose stew should be ready in a bit.  If you want to check out a few more of my posts on Gov. Palin, the links post is here.

Thought on worship

I've been trying to work this thought into a fully-developed (and fully-coherent) post for several days now, and for one reason and another just haven't managed it; I still want to do more with it, but for now, I think I'll just put this out there as best I can at the moment.  There is the assumption in most churches, I think—even in many that would deny it consciously, I think it's still there, unexpressed, at the level of subconscious expectation—that the pastor's/worship leader's job is to give people what they want in worship.  All our thinking is organized around that, and much of the language we use in describing our worship supports and contributes to that assumption.  

I think the reason for that is that in the attractional paradigm for church growth, the "worship experience" is the core of the "attractional" part.  It seems to me that whatever the message the preacher is selling, be it self-help or social justice or self-realization or what have you, the worship—by which is usually meant the music part of the service—is the bait on the hook.  It's the free weekend in Vegas to get you to come and listen to the pitch for the time-share (if they're still doing that in the current economy; I've had people try to get me to take one of those trips more than once, but never wanted to):  the worship is the fun time, and then the preacher gives you the pitch.  If the music's good enough and you like what he's selling, you come back; but the emotional experience of the worship is definitely the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down.

This has taught us in the American church to see worship in this way, as what we get out of church in exchange for whatever we're asked to put in.  Even in liturgical churches, people evaluate it that way—does the liturgy comfort me, do I like doing the same thing every week, do I not like doing the same thing every week, does the form help me do x, does the routine bore me, and so on.  What we miss is that liturgy is a discipline—and it's a discipline because worship is a discipline.  It's not about what the liturgy does for us, because it's not about what worship does for us:  it's about what the liturgy invites us, leads us, calls us, instructs us to do.

It's the discipline of recognizing that we don't come to worship on our own initiative, but only in response to God's call; of recognizing, as we praise God for his glory and holiness, that in comparison to him, we don't look that great, and that no matter how wonderful we may think we are, we are in fact broken messed-up sinners just like everyone else—and need to humbly confess that fact to him, to each other, together.  It's about the discipline of sitting ourselves down in his presence to receive his Word with open ears, open minds, open hearts—not to use it to get what we want, but to accept it and let him tell us what we need.  It's about disciplining our hearts to receive his sacraments in that spirit, and to respond to Word and sacrament by affirming our faith, standing together to pledge our allegiance as a people to the King and Kingdom of Heaven, than which we owe no greater allegiance.  It's about the discipline of intercessory prayer, which is our confession that we aren't strong enough and great enough to make it all work on our own, and of the offering, which is our confession that we owe God everything, not least gratitude for all that he's given us.  Even receiving the charge and benediction is a discipline:  it's the acceptance of the fact that we are not our own and our lives are not our own, and that what we do and hear and say on Sunday mornings ought to form the lines of everything we do and say and think across the other six and a half days.

As we look at the form and content of our worship services, "Is this what I want?" really ought to be the last question on our minds; what we need to ask is, "What is this asking me to do?  How is this forming me as a disciple of Christ?"  To mangle a line, ask not what your worship service can do for you; ask what you can do for God through your worship service.

Candidate Obama vs. President Obama

C4P calls this NRSC ad "devastating."  They're right.  Barack Obama stands condemned out of his own mouth.

What has Christ to do with politics?

What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians?

—Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, 7

This famous rhetorical question of Tertullian’s has been used in many ways—including, by many skeptics, as a tool with which to bash him in particular and Christians in general as arrogant know-nothings who prefer to stay ignorant.  In context, that’s not exactly fair, given the nature of the philosophy he’s rejecting, and the sort of disputations it produced; but the fact remains that most people aren’t satisfied just to wave away all skeptical inquiries and challenges as Tertullian did, declaring,

With our faith, we desire no further belief. For this is our palmary faith, that there is nothing which we ought to believe besides.

Indeed, I don’t think we should be satisfied thus.  For all that he meant it as a rhetorical question, if we truly believe that all truth is God’s truth and that his common grace is available to all people—which, if we follow Scripture, I think we should—then his question needs to be taken seriously as a question, and addressed accordingly.

The same, I believe, must be said of the relationship between faith and politics.  Consider Tertullian’s description of the philosophical art of his day as 

the art of building up and pulling down; an art so evasive in its propositions, so far-fetched in its conjectures, so harsh, in its arguments, so productive of contentions— embarrassing even to itself, retracting everything, and really treating of nothing!

That’s as vivid a description of academic disputation now as it ever was—but at least as much, if not more, it’s also a vivid description of our political scene.  Looking out at a political landscape in which people do things like try to bankrupt their political opponents with an unending stream of frivolous complaints, Tertullian might well have asked, “What has Calvary to do with D.C.?”  And again, though he would undoubtedly have answered “Nothing,” and moved on, we need to stop and consider the question carefully and thoughtfully.  What is the proper connection between these two very different things, the life of faith and the life of politics?

This is a problematic question, and while it has ever been thus—this relationship has never been as clear and easy to understand as many people have assumed—the current polarized state of American politics causes us to feel the problem quite keenly. The negativity and the fearmongering are corrosive to the spirit, and the vehemence with which people disagree is wearying.  To be sure, neither the nature nor the degree of this problem are unique in American history (just think of the 1860s, when the political divisions in this country were so deep, we wound up going to war over them); what is new, however, is the particular role of religion in our political disputes. In the Civil War, as Lincoln noted, it was true that “both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other” (while in the background echoed St. James’ anguished cry, “This should not be!”); in contemporary America, however, the situation is very different. In our day, by and large, churchgoers tend to side with one party, while those who have no use for church vote for the other—and in popular perception, the gap is nearly total (to the utter irritation of liberal Christians, who understandably don’t like being overlooked).

In light of this, many would say that the problem is that religion is mixed up with politics when it shouldn’t be. In this view, religion only serves to exacerbate our differences and drive the wedges between us deeper, and the only solution is for religious folk to keep their faith in their churches and out of the voting booth.  There’s a certain superficial appeal to this suggestion, but a little more thought shows it for the discriminatory idea it really is. Why, after all, should non-religious people be permitted to vote on the basis of their deepest convictions, but religious people be forbidden to do the same? Any attempt to make religion the problem is ultimately an attempt to privilege one mode of thought (the secular) over others, and thus is essentially antithetical to the nature and purpose of the American experiment.

Our current situation is complex, and there is no one step we can take that will make it better; everyone involved in our political system contributes in some way to its problems, and it will take efforts from all sides to improve America’s political health. Those who are Christians need to address the ways in which overtly faith-based political involvement has often been unhelpful; to do this, it will be necessary for us to do a much better job of integrating our theology with our politics.

That might seem counterintuitive to many, who would point to the great many references to the Bible and Christian faith which we already hear from our politicians (and not just Republican politicians, either), but it’s the truth. The problem is that as frequent as such statements may be, most of them aren’t good political theology; while there may be an effort to relate Christian faith to politics, the effort is made in the wrong way and thus does not bear good fruit. Rather than true political theology, what we get instead is mere theologized politics; we get faith used as a tool to advance a political agenda, rather than free to critique and correct that agenda.  This is the point at which things go awry.

Another shameless plug

I've been working for a while now on a new website for our church, and now we're all set up and going.  I'm sure I'll be tweaking things for a while, and that others here will be doing so as well, but as a beginning, I'm happy with it.  Wander over and check it out, if you would, and if you have any suggestions for improvement, leave a comment on this post—I'm always glad for a good idea or two.  And if you happen to be in the area of a Sunday morning, drop in and say hi—we'd love to have you join us.

Joe Biden, Comedian-in-Chief

For all the flap about President Obama stiffing the Gridiron Club and sending Vice President Biden in his stead, I have to think that from an entertainment perspective, Joe Biden was a better choice; it certainly sounds like he put on a good show.  Here's a partial transcript of his remarks, courtesy of the "Playbook" at Politico:

Axelrod really wanted me to do this on teleprompter—but I told him I’m much better when I wing it. . . . I know these evenings run long, so I’m going to be brief. Talk about the audacity of hope. . . . President Obama does send his greetings, though. He can’t be here tonight—because he’s busy getting ready for Easter. [Whisper] He thinks it’s about him. . . .

I know that no president has missed his first Gridiron since Grover Cleveland. Of course, President Cleveland really did have better things to do on a Saturday night. When he was in the White House—he was married to a 21 year old woman. . . . I understand these are dark days for the newspaper business, but I hate it when people say that newspapers are obsolete. That’s totally untrue. I know from firsthand experience. I recently got a puppy, and you can’t housebreak a puppy on the Internet.

Now let’s see: we have a Republican speaker who was born in Austria, and tonight’s Democratic speaker was born in Canada. Folks, this is Lou Dobbs’ worst nightmare. . . We are now two months into the Obama-Biden administration and the President and I have become extremely close. To give you an idea of how close we are, he told me that next year—maybe, just maybe—he’s going to give me his Blackberry e-mail address. . . . But the Obama Administration really is a good team. I am the experienced veteran. Rahm can be an enforcer. And Tim Geithner is always there when you need to borrow money, no questions asked.

You know, I never realized just how much power Dick Cheney had until my first day on the job. I walked into my office, and you know how the outgoing president always leaves the incoming president a note in his desk? I opened my drawer and Dick Cheney had left me Barack Obama’s birth certificate. . . . I now realize that we have to be extra careful when we annunciate new policy ideas to make sure they don’t look like they’re personally motivated. For example, the other day there were a whole bunch of stories about the President’s hair going gray; the next day there’s a story about a Vice President who’s trying to grow new hair, and then the day after that, the two of us come out in favor of stem cell research. That looked bad.

I’d like to address some of the things I said: Like when I said that “JOBS” is a three-letter word. I did say that. But I didn’t mean it literally. It’s like how, right now, most people think AIG is a four-letter word. . . . Or when I announced our stimulus package website, I was asked how you get to it: All I said was I didn’t know the website number. What I really meant to say was, “Ted Stevens didn’t tell me what tube the website is in.”

The Not-So-Great Communicator

You know you're not having a good week when you build your reputation on your speaking ability and then you start getting headlines like this:

Obama struggles as communicator

The Note, 3/20/2009: So Special—Obama loses a week, as a great communicator doesn’t communicate

Barack Obama Is a Terrible Bore

But that was the week that was, for President Obama—the week in which he took a pounding for closing a press award ceremony to the press.  I think Ed Morissey's crack on his Special Olympics gaffe captures the spirit of his week as well as anything can:

You know how you can tell when a President has a bad day?  When his comparison of an American corporation to terrorists is the second-stupidest thing he said.

He'll bounce back, I'm sure; every scorer has games where they just can't put the ball in the hole.  But no question, the president was in a real shooting slump this week, and the shine is starting to wear off with the press—they're actually starting to notice these things.  He'd best get back on his game in a hurry, or it'll hurt him.

President Bush is a class act

This from Andrew Malcolm, in the Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog:

Tuesday in Calgary, the 43rd president gave the first of about a dozen paid speeches arranged so far by the Washington Speakers Bureau on his 2009 schedule. And here's what Bush told about 2,000 business persons about his successor, the 44th president:

"There are plenty of critics in the arena. He deserves my silence."

Bush said something else too:

"I love my country a lot more than I love politics. I think it is essential that he be helped in office." . . .

Bush also said if the new president wanted his help, "he's welcome to call me."

Apparently, Dick Cheney's not very happy with him, but I think this is both gracious and wise of our most recent ex-president.  Good for him.

An all-time classic bad review

I don’t normally post food reviews—actually, let’s come right out and say it, I’ve never before posted a food review, and never thought to do so—and even if I did, I’d have no particular reason to post a review of a restaurant in England, seeing as I live on the wrong side of the Great Puddle; but the food reviewer for The Times of London, AA Gill, just had an absolute screaming fit in print, handing out a zero-star review that actually, if you can believe it, makes the grade sound at least one star too high.  The whole thing’s worth reading for sheer unintentional comedy value (though one does feel a certain sharp sympathy for Gill for having to endure the experience), but the opening in particular is beyond price:

You’d think they’d get it. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that when the world falls on your head, you might do something different. It’s like Moses. Comes down from the mountain, still smelling of burning bush, eyes revolving, levitating with the true believer’s va-va-voom, and he bellows: “God, the God—Mr God to you—just gave me these instructions, written in sodding marble, and it's going to get us out of here. After 40 years in this hole, we’re going home. Milk and honey, vineyards, fedoras. Listen up.”

Then a bloke at the back says: “Well now, hold on. Hold on. Maybe we shouldn’t be hasty in discarding the golden calf. Granted, it’s been a bit tricky recently, but it just needs a bit of tweaking. Have you ever thought that perhaps what we need is a bigger golden calf?”

And that’s when Moses loses the plot, and throws a right strop. Not only did God give him celestial sat-nav, he also gave him a proper, Old Testament, fundamental fire-and-brimstone temper. (That and a foreskin, which was something of a novelty for the Jewish ladies.) Anyway, I’m with Moses. Not only the foreskin bit, but I’m just about to have an exodus tantrum.

Read the whole thing, and you’ll understand why . . .

What do love and grace have in common?

They're both a lot harder than we think.  I've been arguing for a while now that grace is painfully difficult to accept, because free is a higher price than we want to pay; yesterday, Jared Wilson put up a superb post pointing out that love doesn't really make things easier, either.  It's short and I'd love to copy the whole thing, but then you wouldn't have any incentive to go over and read it there, so I'll excerpt it instead.

Why do we think it's easier to love people than it is to just be religious?

I'm not sure people who think and speak that way really even know what love is.

Maybe the reason we don't all, in the spirit of unity and rainbows, just set aside our differences and love each other is because it's really freaking hard to do that. . . .

It's a lot easier to follow some rules everyone can see me keep than it is to truly, actually love people.

Anybody can be on their best behavior. But to love someone who hates you? That takes Jesus and his cross.

Go read the whole thing.