Mitt Romney, the Beltway GOP, and the meaning of Evansville

(Note: this was originally posted at Conservatives4Palin.)

I didn't blog about it much, but at the beginning of the last presidential campaign, I was intending to vote for Mitt Romney. I wasn't a huge fan, but my primary concern was finding someone who could beat Rudy Giuliani, the one person in the race I simply could not support; on that score, Gov. Romney seemed like the best option. He was the most conservative of the plausible candidates, and had proven himself to be an effective executive in a number of positions. His record in Massachusetts doesn't look as good now as it did before I really understood the situation with RomneyCare, but even given that fiasco, the man's a capable administrator with the guts to make tough decisions. I still think he would have made a better president than John McCain, though Sen. McCain made a better losing nominee since he brought Sarah Palin on the national stage.

That said, since Gov. Romney began his run for the nomination, the only thing he's done that hasn't lowered my opinion of him was to suspend his campaign; at every other point, the more I've seen of him, the less I've thought of him. His recent attempts to diminish Gov. Palin, both directly and by proxy, only compound that; I understand why he's doing it, but this is one case where to understand most definitely is not to forgive. The fact that he's denigrating someone who simply doesn't deserve it is certainly no more acceptable because he's doing it out of raw ambition, after all.

Gov. Romney's comments aren't only ignoble, however, they're also revealingly clueless. I'm not certain whether he really believes what he's saying or merely considers it to be a plausible line of attack, but either way, it seems clear that he does not in fact understand Gov. Palin's influence, which means that he doesn't understand the reasons for her influence—and in this, I believe he's representative of the GOP Beltway types who now consider him the rightful heir (or at least a rightful aspirant) to the party's mantle.

They don't like her because she's not one of them, and they fail to understand that that's why she's influential: that she isn't one of them is the whole point. She's one of us, a politician who remains of and for the ordinary barbarians of this country, and at this point, any effort—any effort, no matter what else it has going for it—to elevate another Beltway insider as the GOP's standard bearer is doomed to failure.

All of this, of course, has been said before, here and elsewhere; but there's a particular aspect to it which I believe is highlighted in a bitterly ironic way by Mitt Romney, of all people, dissing Gov. Palin as just another pretty face. I don't mean the fact that Gov. Romney himself consciously tried to use his looks to his advantage, and thus was far more deserving of his own jab than Gov. Palin, though the irony there is sharp enough; but there's something more significant in play here as well, something which is thrown into sharp relief by Gov. Palin's trip last month to Evansville, IN.

The key thing to understand about that visit is something the executive director of Vandenburgh County RTL said, which Joseph Russo used in his headline: "[Palin] walks the walk and talks the talk. She could . . . be doing other things, but she chose to do this."

To know just how much that means, you need to know something about the pro-life movement: it has been the beneficiary, from many on the Right, of much talk and very little walk. It's a grassroots movement outside the elite culture, outside the halls of power, that is primarily used rather than supported by those who have influence. I can't think how many strong pro-life people I know who looked back at the Bush 43 administration last year and said, in essence, yeah, he gave us Roberts and Alito, but what else did he do for us? Was it worth what we did for him? And the thing is, George W. Bush was no worse in that respect than any other leading conservative politician—he was, in fact, completely typical.

And he wasn't only typical of politicians, either. I know a pastor who served for many years as the senior pastor of a large, influential Southern Baptist church in one of the cities of the Deep South—a good man, a godly man, and one well familiar with the corridors of power and the wielders of influence in the Southern Baptist Convention. We were talking one time about the whole issue of abortion, and he made a statement that absolutely floored me: he declared that over his whole career, he had never known a Southern Baptist pastor who risked anything for the pro-life movement.

Now, consider that. The SBC is known throughout the country as a conservative Christian denomination, it's known everywhere for its support of the conservative social agenda, and if you asked a random selection of non-Southern Baptists what they knew about it, I'd bet most of them would mention its opposition to abortion somewhere in there—and yet, according to him, that has all just been words. When the rubber meets the road, effectively, he said, Southern Baptist pastors have been unwilling to walk the talk, unwilling to lay their reputations, the reputations of their congregations, their positions, or anything else on the line to back up what they said they believed. And in that, I don't say this to bash the SBC, because in my experience, they too are typical.

The point here, let me reiterate, is not to criticize George W. Bush, or my colleagues in the Southern Baptist Church—or me, for that matter; in all honesty, I have to admit that there have been times that I too have ducked away from the issue of abortion instead of taking a stand. I speak here with the rueful honesty of a regretful and repentant sinner; I know I'm no one to cast the first stone. My point, rather, is this: when you see someone willing to put their political capital where their mouth is, willing to lay something on the line and risk something real for the sake of a cause in which they claim to believe, pay attention. Pay attention, because here you have found someone who actually believes something, and does so strongly enough to live it out when it matters.

This, to come at last to the promise of my title, is the meaning of Evansville—and make no mistake, it's a meaning that the organizers of those events understand perfectly. They have no doubt seen plenty of Republican types show up for the photo op and then be long gone when it mattered; for Gov. Palin to come and speak, especially at a time when she (and everyone else who was paying attention) had to know she was going to get hammered by the ankle-biters back in Alaska—to make an effort that actually cost her something in order to support a cause she believes in—clearly meant the world to them. That she refused the offer of a fundraiser as part of the deal (which I suspect she would have seen as cheapening her visit, and quite frankly would have cheapened it) only made her visit all the more meaningful.

The thing is, those folks in Vandenburgh County were absolutely right to feel that way, and to see Gov. Palin that way, because with that trip she did something that politicians rarely do: she gave of herself for the sake of others. She showed by her actions that her political positions aren't just political positions, they're things that she believes deeply enough and strongly enough that she's willing to spend her own political capital and put herself on the line for their sake, and for the sake of the people involved. She showed that she was willing to make that effort and take the criticism and the sniping from the peanut gallery for the sake of people trying to save the lives of unborn children in southern Indiana, and for the sake of Down Syndrome children like her own youngest son. She showed that what she believes isn't a matter of political convenience, nor is it subject to renegotiation for the sake of political advantage, because it's rooted in who she is and what she cares about and what drives her to do what she does.

And in that, she separated herself—decisively—from Mitt Romney, the GOP establishment as a whole (though not all its members; it was also heartening to see Michael Steele there, and one may hope that this is a sign of things to come), the conservative chattering classes, and many of the party's presidential hopefuls. And in that, she showed clearly the roots of her influence, and the reason why that influence will not wane unless she decides to lay it aside. To borrow a line from Abraham Lincoln on U. S. Grant which others have borrowed recently, we've decided that we can't spare this woman—she fights. If the Beltway GOP wants to win our support, let them stop trying to tear her down, and go and do likewise.

Jack Kemp, RIP

It's not typical for a politician's death to get coverage on ESPN—but then, Jack Kemp wasn't exactly your typical politician.  To be sure, he wasn't the only high-profile athlete to go into politics—the U.S. Senate has even seen two Hall of Famers among its members in recent decades, Bill Bradley and Jim Bunning, though both are marginal inductees, and the House of Representatives currently has former NFL QB (and first-round bust) Heath Shuler serving from North Carolina—but successful athletes who become major political figures are rare, and Kemp was both.  He had a rough ride establishing himself in the pros, but when the AFL came along he seized the opportunity with both hands, quarterbacking Buffalo to four playoff appearances and two league championships (and losing another with San Diego in 1961) and making seven AFL All-Star teams.

He then parlayed his fame in Buffalo into nine terms in the House from upstate New York, during which time he established himself as one of this country's most intelligent, articulate, and vocal exponents of conservative political principles.  I'm sure I'm far from the only one who thinks that the GOP and the nation both would be a lot better off had Kemp won his 1988 bid for the Republican presidential nomination rather than losing to the name recognition of George H. W. Bush, the incumbent VP.  Still, he continued to contribute as President Bush 41's HUD secretary, then served as Bob Dole's VP nominee in 1996, bringing energy and conservative enthusiasm to the GOP ticket much as Sarah Palin would for Sen. Dole's fellow war veteran and centrist Republican John McCain twelve years later.

As a childhood fan of Kemp's Bills and a neighbor of his in Maryland who writes extensively on both politics and football, Gregg Easterbrook is uniquely positioned to write about Jack Kemp, and his eulogy on ESPN.com is well worth reading because it captures a sense of the broad sweep of the man's life.  As he notes, and as David Goldman (aka Spengler) points out in his piece on the First Things website, without Kemp it would be hard to imagine the Reagan Revolution happening the way it did.

Former vice-presidential candidate, congressman, and Housing secretary, he was the most improbable and the most important hero of the Reagan Revolution after the Gipper himself. Without Jack’s true-believer’s passion for tax cuts as a remedy for the stagflation of the 1970s, Reagan would not have staked his presidency on an untested and controversial theory. His death should remind us how lucky we were to have leaders like Reagan and Kemp, and a political system that allowed improbable leaders—an ex-actor and a retired quarterback—to appear at providential moments.

It was impossible to be cynical in Jack’s vicinity. He radiated sincerity and optimism. Corny as it sounds, Jack was the real thing, an all-American true believer in this country and in the capacity of its people to overcome any obstacle once given the chance. . . .

What attracted Jack Kemp to supply-side economics was the promise of advancement for ordinary people. . . . He passionately believed in individual opportunity and free markets, and he needed an argument to take to the union rank-and-file who made up the bulk of his district’s voters. Supply-side economics, the premise that tax cuts and corresponding regulatory reform would unleash the creative energies of Americans, persuaded him, and he became its great missionary.

A genuinely independent thinker, Kemp was that rarest of all birds:  an unpredictable politician.  Easterbrook captures this when he writes,

Kemp was keenly concerned with the plight of the poor. The libertarian side of his personality viewed tolerance as crucial. Kemp often broke with other Reagan supporters on women's and minority issues, respect for labor and an end of discrimination against homosexuality; and though a devout Christian himself—prayer circles are a regular event at his home—he was disgusted by all forms of religion-based bias. His signature issue became Enterprise Zones. Kemp was dismayed by the decline of mostly minority inner cities, and hardly just Buffalo. He felt excessive regulations and legal liability discouraged businesses from investing in urban areas where jobs were needed, while in effect encouraging business to develop unplowed land that ought to be preserved. . . .

When Bush was elected to the White House, he named Kemp Secretary of HUD, a position from which he implemented Enterprise Zone ideas. HUD is an agency that traditionally has not interested conservatives much, because it deals with issues of the impoverished, such as public housing. Kemp dove into HUD's subject matter with zeal, and over time was proven correct, as the Enterprise Zone was a factor—hardly the only factor, of course—in the spectacular American urban comeback that began in the 1990s. . . .

Beneath the surface of Kemp's political heterodoxy was a lifelong love of argument over ideas. Kemp clung to many causes viewed as idiosyncratic, such as a return to the gold standard, and advanced "supply side" economic ideas that were in some ways more radical than anything coming from the left. He spent far more time with writers and intellectuals than do most nationally known politicians, and he got more excited about books than about polls. While many politicians want to shake hands with intellectuals at photo ops, Kemp wanted to argue, sometimes well into the night. . . . Unlike so many politicians, who leave behind little but backroom deals and self-congratulation, Kemp's legacy is one of ideas. As of last autumn, Kemp was still banging out newspaper columns in support of John McCain and in opposition to taxes. Unlike so many political figures who only preach family values, Kemp was married for more than 50 years to his college sweetheart, Joanne Main. . . .

Kemp had read some of my books—he seemed to have read at least parts of every book—and took me aside a few times to talk public policy. It was pleasant, and I wish it had lasted longer. I couldn't convince Kemp that Obama is not a socialist; to win an argument with him, you would have needed to bring along an army. But I also don't think he really meant to insult the new president. I think he admired the new president quite a bit. He just liked to provoke political arguments and see where they led. For him, they led to a great life well lived.

Easterbrook ends with a testimony to Kemp's character; Goldman echoes the theme.

Jack was a leader who loved his country and put it before personal gain. When he left office he had the equity in his house and not much else. But he had four children, including two sons who played professional football, and seventeen grandchildren. . . .

A devout Christian, Jack made far more of a difference than an ex-quarterback with a physical education degree from Occidental College had a right to. He earned our gratitude not only for what he accomplished, but for what he proved about the character of the United States.

A good man, a godly man, a politician who brought his country great benefit—and a mighty fine quarterback to boot:  Jack Kemp was a great American, and this nation is poorer for his death.  Requiescat in pace.

1000

This is my 1000th post.  I haven't noted previous milestones, but 1000 is just such a resonant round number, I couldn't let it pass unremarked.  Considering that from October 2003 through December 2006 I only posted 30 times, no one would have been likely to predict I'd hit this one (not that anyone would have cared enough to consider the question); 2007 was a busier year, but even then I only put up 65 posts.  In January of last year, though, I was inspired to take blogging seriously as a discipline, and that changed things; in the 16 months from my first post that year until now, I've put up 905 pieces, or about 56 per month.  Of course, a lot of those have been minor—video posts, song lyrics, quotes—but there's been a fair bit of serious material, too; this blog is still small potatoes as these things go (actually, fingerlings would be more to the point), but there are folks who read on some kind of regular basis, too, and I appreciate all of you.

I was ruminating a bit the other day over some of the hits and misses I've had, and my mind got stuck a little on my 2006 post on Barack Obama, in which I praised his speech on religion in the public square.  That was the point at which he really stuck in my mind as a likely presidential candidate, though I didn't think he'd be ready for the office in 2008 (and 100 days into his administration, I still don't).  In retrospect, I think I gave him more credit for that speech than he had coming, but if I heard more what I wanted to hear than what he was actually committed to, I don't blame myself too much for that, since he has a gift for eliciting that sort of response.  Given how many pro-life evangelicals managed to convince themselves that he deserved their support, I think I did a pretty decent job of staying objective; I suspect the biggest fallout for the pro-life cause from the Obama presidency will be the number of evangelicals who, when they really face the cognitive dissonance between their convictions and their vote, sacrifice the former to justify the latter to themselves and others, and end up coming out in support of abortion.  I hope there won't be too many, but I don't think they'll be isolated cases, either.

Anyway, I'm enjoying the ride, and whether it does anyone else any good or not, I think this blog is helping me grow as a thinker and writer, and I even think it's helped my preaching; and I do hope it provides some benefit to those of you who are regular visitors, and to the various folks who drop by for one thing and another.  Onward and upward.

Barack Obama, union enforcer

Mariner fans once dubbed Seattle Times beat writer Bob Finnegan "Pocket Lint" because he was so deep in ownership's pocket—his pieces were, dependably, dutiful recitations of whatever the company line happened to be—and now I'm starting to think the nickname may need to be revived for Barack Obama.  We knew the labor movement had him in its pocket, but the whole business with Chrysler is beyond anything I would have expected.  President Obama and his administration essentially took a crowbar and attempted to kneecap a group of Chrysler investors in an effort to win better terms for the United Auto Workers than the UAW will be able to get in bankruptcy proceedings now that the automaker has filed for Chapter 11.  As the ever-invaluable Beldar lays it out,

What the Obama Administration has been trying to do, however, has been to cajole or—it's now becoming more clear—threaten people who carefully bargained for less risk, and who thereby had to settle for lower rewards all along, into voluntarily forfeiting the protections they bought and paid for in the event of the underlying business' insolvency. Primarily through Chrysler's pension and retiree health-care obligations, the UAW is a creditor of Chrysler, but one whose position is less favored by the bankruptcy laws than the investors (debt holders) represented by companies like Oppenheimer Funds or Perella Weinburg. Unlike the UAW, their clients negotiated, bought, and paid for the rights not to have to have to make the same "sacrifices" that equity holders or general unsecured creditors would be compelled to make under the bankruptcy laws. But Obama insists—on pain of presidential demonization and worse—that these so-called "corporate renegades" (who've been guilty of nothing other than greater prudence) make those sacrifices anyway, and that they do so specifically in order to benefit the UAW!

This goes beyond populism or pro-unionism. Barack Obama is engaged in an assault on not just the entire system of business in the free world, but on the American rule of law upon which it is founded.

And the crowbar in question?  The White House press corps, as the lawyer for one of those investors told a talk-radio host in Detroit:

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.

Not that we really needed any further evidence that the MSM is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party machine, but that's still telling.  The White House, of course, is denying the story; as for the response from the aforementioned reporters?  Aside from Jake Tapper, crickets.

The bottom line here, in Beldar's words, is that

the Obama administration is engaged in a colossal abuse of power whose magnitude far exceeds a mere subversion of the White House press corps. Barack Obama has become Guido, the thug who everyone knows has not only a nasty habit but a nasty taste for breaking kneecaps. And the beneficiary of his shakedowns are the United Auto Workers.

Regardless of your position on Chrysler, unions, or any of the other parties involved in this mess, that sort of thing isn't good for anybody for very long.  The rules need to be the same for everyone, and the same at every point in the process.  When the government starts bending them to try to manipulate results—when the process is compromised for the sake of someone's agenda—the system will adjust in a way that will only hurt our economy, and especially those who are most vulnerable.

The thing is, these folks invested a lot of money in an effort to help Chrysler rebound—yes, in the hopes that they would profit off that rebound; our economy doesn't run on altruism—and they did so knowing what the rules were if their efforts succeeded and what they were if Chrysler went down anyway.  Let them and others like them get the idea that the government is willing and able to do whatever is necessary to change those rules after the fact in order to skew the results to its liking, and the next time a big company is looking for help (General Motors, anyone?  The New York Times?), the money won't be there.

Investors are willing to take the normal risks of business, because those risks are predictable, and they're taken into account in the terms of the contract.  If they perceive a significant risk of ex post facto government intervention on behalf of other parties—risks which are neither predictable nor quantifiable—they'll sit on their hands, rather than take the chance that the next kneecap the Obama administration aims at will be theirs; and GM, or whichever company totters next, will go down.

For those frightened by the Mexican flu outbreak

here are some words of wisdom that should allay your concern.  This comes from my uncle, a longtime specialist in infectious diseases who's seen a lot of things come and go over the years; he knows what he's talking about.

To family, friends and others:

Because of the widespread disinformation being perpetrated by the MSM, I feel obliged to share with my family and friends an accurate perception of the current H1N1 influenza outbreak. As many of you know, I am an acknowledged infectious disease specialist. What many do not know is that I have served as a subject-matter expert to both CDC and WHO over the years, and have an accurate assessment of their politics and capabilities. Therefore, I can presume to offer some opinions on this problem.

Seriously, it is somewhat of a problem, but mainly in perception. The MSM has blown it all out of proportion, showing street scenes of people wearing masks, etc, etc. This morning the Today show was all a-gog about "the first US death", which wasn't. It was a Mexican kid who was a few yards over the border in Brownsville, and got taken to Houston (where he exposed dozens of other people). But it was a Mexican case, not a US case.

All the US cases have been mild. The NYC outbreak is directly traceable to Mexico; a bunch of seniors had just returned from spring break in Mexico. The fact that the strain in NYC came from Mexico, but the cases are not so severe suggests that it is the Mexican health care system (or lack of same) that is contributing to the high fatality rates there (CDC acknowledged the same idea late today). It's possible that the deaths are due to bacterial superinfection, similar to what happened in 1918. There is some suggestion that "cytokine storm" might be responsible, but, if that is so, why are Mexican immune systems reacting differently that US immune systems?

The acting head of CDC said on TV today that there is no vaccine against H1N1 influenza, which is only partially true. There have been many mixes of flu vaccine over the years which have contained H1N1 strains, just not this PARTICULAR one. Anyone who has had the flu vaccine regularly over the years should have at least partial protection, which might explain the difference between the US and Mexico.

The CDC on-line recommendations are reasonable and non-panicky. Its the media that is the problem. AND whoever the idiot was at WHO who pushed the "global pandemic" panic button. This is nowhere near a pandemic. It probably won't ever turn into a pandemic. I think the folks at WHO are covering their sixes because of the SARS outbreak a few years ago (which wasn't a pandemic, either, just a global episode.)

Apparently the bloggers are running wild, too. Some are saying this is a Chinese or Russian biowarfare plot (patent BS!). Others are saying it is a Federal scheme, and to avoid getting the vaccine at all costs (again, BS, but related to the 1970s swine flu immunization fiasco.)

What to do? Don't panic. Obama has it all under control. His brilliant suggestion today that if a school has one case of swine flu, they shut down for the week is real stupidity. By the time a case is DOCUMENTED as H1N1, the exposure will have already been done. What he should do is close the border with Mexico for a week. The Cubans, and others, have already shut down all flights to and from Mexico.

A modicum of caution; avoiding crowds and enclosed, crowded places when possible; eating well and keeping a sense of proportion are the best means of prevention.

"This, too, shall pass". We survived the 1918 pandemic; we survived SARS; we will survive this episode.

William O. Harrison, MD, FACP, FACPM, FIDSA
CAPT(MC)USN(ret)

Money and writing

Sir, no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

—Samuel Johnson

Always pleasant to be labeled a blockhead by a genius.  Still, fortunately for me, there are many other writers who disagree with Dr. Johnson.  There are also many who note, essentially, that if Dr. Johnson were correct, no one but a blockhead would ever write.  Fortunately for all of us, this doesn't prove to be the case . . .

“Heresy” is a big word

That was one of Mark Driscoll's observations during his message at GCNC last week: “heresy” is a big word, a loaded word, that should only be used carefully, when necessary.  That's not to say that we should never use it—sometimes it's necessary, when people are claiming the name of Jesus to teach things that are significantly at odds with the gospel—but we must be very sure of our ground before we use that word, and equally sure of the spirit in which we use it.  That must never be an accusation hurled in anger, but must only be spoken gently, in a gracious spirit of loving correction.

S. M. Hutchens addresses this in an editorial in the latest issue of Touchstone called “The War on Error: The Business of Confronting Heresy”; it is in general a careful and thoughtful piece that takes note both of the need to name heresy for what it is and of the dangers in doing so overaggressively.

If an accusation is made, it must be made clearly, forcefully, and memorably, so that it is understood by those one is trying to protect from false doctrine: “This is untrue; it is heresy; avoid these people who teach it.”

This must be done judiciously and in the line of duty. If I have any quarrel with certain fathers, it is not that they identified false teaching for what it was, but that they sometimes did it so frequently that it may have become difficult to hear. There is besides a certain pathological temperament that enjoys hunting down and denouncing error and subjecting those who commit it to terror and humiliation that hardens them against truth. The heresy-hunting inquisitor is not a divine office, whereas pastor and teacher are. To the former mentality, exposing error is not a painful task cast in one’s path by the duties of office, but a form of pleasure—a dungeoner’s pleasure of which no good man would be proud.

However, I think there's a point, named in the editorial, where Hutchens himself goes over the line.  Heretical doctrine is not merely doctrine which is in error, but doctrine which is in error on the core matters of the Christian faith, in such a way that the doctrine fundamentally threatens the integrity of the gospel message; it's a significant departure from what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity,” nothing else, and nothing less.  Only those things which lead people away from the very means of salvation, then, deserve this label.  As such, I cannot agree when Hutchens writes,

These considerations have weighed heavily on me because of my concern with egalitarianism, which I have identified as a heresy. Although the identification was not difficult from a theological point of view—and our opponents are now in many places returning the compliment, accusing us of subordinationism: but surely one of us is heretical—its publication was very difficult indeed.

This is not just a matter of my being an egalitarian, though I will confess that being labeled a heretic is mildly irritating; it's a matter of Hutchens using a word that's far too big for the subject.  Is egalitarianism wrong?  Perhaps, though I don't believe so; we can debate it.  But when he says “surely one of us is heretical,” he puts that out of possibility:  he says that those with whom he disagrees are not merely wrong, but grievously wrong, to such an extent that it threatens our salvation—and thus that if he were in fact wrong, the same would be true of him.

This is where I think Hutchens is seriously wrong.  I don't see any support for his conclusion, and I don't believe he can support it; scripturally, there is clearly an argument for his complementarian position, but not for the case that that position is essential for salvation.  Indeed, at this point it seems to me that he's guilty of what Ray Ortlund dubbed “Galatian sociology”:  he's added belief in something extrinsic to the gospel to belief in Jesus.  He may well be correct that belief in Jesus ought to lead to his position on male/female roles and relations, but that in and of itself is not enough to justify his conclusion that any other position is heretical.

If anything, in asserting that one must believe in Jesus and in complementarianism, he's made himself vulnerable to a charge of heresy on the grounds that he has made salvation dependent not on Jesus but on right doctrine.  This is what the late Stan Grenz (if I recall correctly) called “the evangelical heresy,” that of putting our faith not in Jesus but in our creeds.  This is not to say that creeds don't matter and right doctrine doesn't matter, because the truth of what we believe matters immensely; but it is to say that it's even more important to put the locus of salvation in the right place, not in the truth of what we believe, but in the truth of the one in whom we believe—or perhaps we might say, in the Truth in whom we believe.  The truth of our beliefs is important, because where we get things wrong, it obscures and distorts our understanding of the one in whom we put our faith—but it's still he and he alone who saves us, not the correctness of our understanding of him.

As such, I believe Hutchens has shown himself guilty of a grave error in pronouncing gender egalitarians guilty of heresy, because he has elevated a particular belief about how God wants us to order our lives to a position of equality with belief in God himself; this is, I believe, a displacement of the proper centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation, and that is a serious matter indeed.  I hesitate to declare that his error rises to the level of imperiling his eternal soul; as I said at the beginning, heresy is a very big word indeed, and I don't consider that I have the right to make that judgment.  But I think that Hutchens would do very well to reconsider, if not his complementarian view of gender, at least the theological absolutism with which he holds that position, and whether he's really in line with the gospel of Jesus Christ to declare all countervailing positions not merely wrong but fully heretical.  That way, it seems to me, lies nothing good.

The Obama administration and the criminalization of dissent

I wrote a piece early last October laying out my thoughts as to what the Obama administration would look like, and what his presidency would bring.  At some point, I intend to do a full-scale review of that post, evaluating what I got right and what I got wrong, but at this point I think I can call the shot on three connected predictions I made:  that Barack Obama's talk of bipartisanship would be just empty words belied by a highly partisan administration, that Nancy Pelosi would run rampant, and (most worrisome), this:

I believe the approach we've seen from the Obama campaign to dissent and criticism will be repeated in the policies and responses of an Obama-led Executive Branch; given the clear willingness of his campaign to suppress freedom of speech to prevent criticism of their candidate, I believe we'll see the same willingness from his administration and his chief congressional allies. This will mean a surge in the kind of the strongarm political tactics that we've already seen entirely too often this year. . . .

The Obama campaign's efforts to shout down Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso (in an effort to intimidate Chicago radio station WGN into canceling their appearances on Milt Rosenberg's show) ought to be disturbing to anyone who cares about free speech. Of even greater concern should be the Obama "truth squads" in Missouri, where the campaign enlisted allies in public office to threaten prosecution of any TV station that runs any ads about Sen. Obama that the campaign deems untrue. Not only is this approach outrageously biased (one side's allowed to lie, but the other isn't?), it gets into some very grey areas about interpretation and intent, and thus raises some real concerns as to the approach an Obama Department of Justice might take to the First Amendment.

This kind of approach, like Joe Biden's suggestion that an Obama/Biden administration might prosecute the Bush administration, is nothing more nor less than the use (or threat of use) of political power to punish one's opponents, intimidate critics, and silence dissenters; it's the sort of thing we're used to seeing in Zimbabwe, not here—and as the case of Zimbabwe shows, there's nothing, not even money, that can corrupt a democracy faster, or more severely. I've argued before that one of the great problems with our politics in this day and age is that we absolutize our own perspectives—we assume that our own perspectives and presuppositions are the only legitimate ones, and that those who disagree with us can't possibly be doing so sincerely, but must be acting out of motives that are selfish or otherwise wrong. The criminalization of politics, which we're starting to see urged by the Obama campaign, is a more extreme version of that problem, because it argues that those motives are not only wrong, but are in fact criminal in nature. The chilling effect of that sort of approach should be deeply worrisome not just to conservatives, but also to true liberals.

Unfortunately, it appears that many leftist Democrats aren't true liberals, because President Obama has now invited just such prosecutions, and they don't appear to be worried at all; to its credit, the Boston Globe did call out Janet Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security for the egregious report that pretty much labeled all conservatives as potential terrorist threats, but an awful lot of Democrats seem to be just fine with it.  Indeed, many who were First Amendment absolutists who loved to wax lyrical about the importance of dissent back when there was a Republican in the White House now seem to think anyone who dares argue with the Anointed One should be drug out into the street and shot.

To repeat:  the willingness of those in power to deal with opposition by criminalizing policy differences—to use brute force as a tool for gaining and maintaining political power—is one of the things that makes places like Zimbabwe the basket cases that they are.  We cannot afford to allow such an approach to corrupt our system.  But even if concern for what's best for the nation doesn't restrain the Obama administration from such banana-republic tactics, enlightened self-interest should, as Matt Lewis memorably illustrated (HT:  Joshua Livestro):

There has been a lot of debate on the potential prosecution of Bush Administration officials who offered legal opinions supporting waterboarding—with some even calling for investigations of high-ranking officials like Dick Cheney. However, one thing that hasn't been given the attention it deserves is the precedent it would set if we were to criminalize national security decisions. Hence, I've finally decided to test out the time machine I've been building in my basement—and you would be surprised what sort of things grew out of the current debacle.

For instance, the following Associated Press story was filed on April 23, 2013, and if it sounds Orwellian, well, it is:

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS TO FACE PROSECUTION

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department announced today that charges could be filed against numerous Obama Administration officials as a result of last year's terror attack in Los Angeles. In announcing the indictments, Attorney General John Cornyn said that top officials showed "gross and purposeful negligence" by releasing perpetrators of the attacks from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and demanding that interrogation tactics be softened against chief planner Mehmet al-Meshugeneh, who had already revealed that a major attack was being planned against a major U.S. sporting event.

"By purposefully disregarding crucial intelligence, and in releasing known participants in the plot into Saudi custody, numerous government officials took action which made the Staples Center bombing possible," Cornyn said. He went on to note that "numerous individuals in the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security knowingly pursued policies which would endanger the lives of Americans. They placed their political priorities above the safety of the citizens of this country, and thousands of innocent people died as a result. These people must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

At the White House, Press Secretary Adam Brickley said that President Sarah Palin stands firmly behind the decision. "It's not as if we relish the thought of prosecuting members of the previous administration," Brickley said, "but, at this point, there is a clearly established precedent—set in place by the Obama Administration themselves—which says that government officials must be held accountable if they contributed in any way to major breaches of the law. In this case, the individuals under investigation do appear to have purposefully allowed these terrorists to continue their actions—prioritizing international public opinion over the lives of the American people. So, while this may be a politically charged issue, there is a real need to prosecute."

In the end, the sort of tactics the Obama administration has now begun to employ are ineffective at silencing dissent (as the case of Zimbabwe, along with many other nations, shows)—all they really do is raise the stakes enormously.  If you're willing to start prosecuting your predecessors, you're going to get the same treatment from your successors unless you can manage to do one of two things:  a) overthrow the Constitution so that you can become President-for-Life, or b) never make a significant mistake.  Taken all in all, I'd say the first is likelier, and neither exactly probable.

All of which is to say that Barack Obama and his senior staff and advisors would do well to remember, and live by, an ancient piece of wisdom:

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

—Matthew 7:12 (ESV)

Christians should be more Christian

Remember, the three most powerful narratives on the planet are narratives of religion, narratives of nation, and narratives of ethnicity/race.  You cannot afford to forfeit that territory by talking about economics or the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Don't be afraid to be Christian ministers.  If you don't use the Christian narrative to define reality for your people, then someone else will define reality for them with a different narrative.

What makes this quote remarkable and unexpected is the speaker:  Eboo Patel, a devout Muslim.  Dr. Patel, an Oxford-trained scholar, teaches a course on interfaith leadership at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago together with a Christian woman named Cassie Meyer; McCormick being what it is, I would have expected such a course there to push lowest-common-denominatorism, but that seems to be far from the case; judging by the fascinating article on Dr. Patel and the class in the latest issue of Leadership, "Ministry Lessons from a Muslim" (which doesn't appear to be up online yet), he and Meyer advocate respectful conversation between unabashed truth claims.  We need to respect and love those with whom we disagree based on our own convictions, not by setting those convictions aside, and so Dr. Patel, as a Muslim, encourages his Christian students to be more Christian.  He explains this in part by saying,

If you enter a ministerial gathering as a Christian minister and downplay your Christian identity in an attempt to make everyone comfortable, as a Muslim leader, I'm immediately suspicious.  I don't trust you.  Embracing your identity as a Christian creates safety for me to be a Muslim.

That isn't a reaction I would have predicted, but it makes a lot of sense; after all, someone capable of neutering their own beliefs and identity for the sake of a particular goal is also perfectly capable of asking others to do the same—which, to those unwilling to do so, makes them a potential threat.  (By contrast, someone unapologetic about declaring and maintaining their beliefs either will make space for others to do the same, or else will expose their hypocrisy and other sin issues.  That's not pleasant, to be sure, but at least such people can be dealt with straightforwardly.)

This is really cool

I don't remember how I ended up with a year's free subscription to Wired, but I've really been enjoying it; I knew it was a good magazine, but either it's gotten better over the last couple years or else I'd never fully appreciated it before.  The serious articles are consistently very good—for instance, there are a couple pieces from the March issue that I've been meaning to post on, serious pieces on the roots of the financial crisis and what steps ought to be taken to deal with it, and I was fascinated by the one in the May issue on Teller and the research he's involved in on the neuropsychology of stage magic (if that sounds geeky, trust me, it isn't)—but my favorite articles have been some of the lighter ones.

I was particularly pleased to see the piece in the April issue on the German board game Settlers of Catan.  If you haven't heard of it before, you're not alone—in America, it has a ways to go before it's as widely-known as, say, Monopoly or Scrabble; the only people I know who've heard of it found out about it the same way I did, from my brother-in-law—but when they call it a "perfect boardgame" that "redefines the genre," they aren't blowing smoke.  It's a fascinating and enjoyable game on every level.  As the article explains,

Instead of direct conflict, German-style games tend to let players win without having to undercut or destroy their friends. This keeps the game fun, even for those who eventually fall behind. Designed with busy parents in mind, German games also tend to be fast, requiring anywhere from 15 minutes to a little more than an hour to complete. They are balanced, preventing one person from running away with the game while the others painfully play out their eventual defeat. And the best ones stay fresh and interesting game after game.

Teuber nailed all these traits using a series of highly orchestrated game mechanics. Instead of a traditional fold-out board, for example, Settlers has the 19 hexagonal tiles, each representing one of five natural resources—wooded forests, sheep-filled meadows, mountains ripe for quarrying. At the beginning of every game, they're arranged at random into an island. Next, numbered tokens marked from 2 to 12 are placed on each tile to indicate which dice rolls will yield a given resource. Because the tiles get reshuffled after every game, you get a new board every time you play.

The idea is that players establish settlements in various locations on the board, and those settlements collect resource cards whenever the token number for the tile they are sitting on gets rolled. By redeeming these resource cards in specific combinations (it takes a hand of wood, brick, wheat, and wool to build a new settlement, for instance), you expand your domain. Every settlement is worth a point, cities are two points, and the first player to earn 10 points wins. You can't get ahead by rustling your opponents' sheep or torching their cute wooden houses.

One of the driving factors in Settlers—and one of the secrets to its success—is that nobody has reliable access to all five resources. This means players must swap cards to get what they need, creating a lively and dynamic market, which works like any other: If ore isn't rolled for several turns, it becomes more valuable. "Even in this tiny, tiny microcosm of life, scarcity leads to higher prices, and plenty leads to lower prices," says George Mason University economist Russ Roberts, who uses Settlers to teach his four children how free markets work.

Wheeling and dealing turns out to be an elegant solution to one of the big problems plaguing Monopoly—sitting idle while other players take their turns. Since every roll of the dice in Settlers has the potential to reap a new harvest of resource cards, unleash a flurry of negotiations, and change the balance of the board, every turn engages all the players. "The secret of Catan is that you have to bargain and sometimes whine," Teuber says.

Teuber also made the game as flexible as possible, with numerous means of earning points. Building the longest road is worth two points, for instance, and collecting development cards (purchased with resource cards, these can offer a Year of Plenty resource bonanza or straight-up points) also brings you closer to victory. Having options like this is critical. The games that stand the test of time have just a few rules and practically unlimited possibilities, making them easy to learn and difficult to master. (Chess, for example, has 10¹²⁰ potential moves, far more than the number of atoms in the universe.)

Finally, the game is designed to restore balance when someone pulls ahead. If one player gets a clear lead, that person is suddenly the prime candidate for frequent attacks by the Robber, a neat hack that Teuber installed. Roll a seven—the most likely outcome of a two-dice roll, as any craps player knows—and those with more than seven resource cards in their hand lose half their stash, while the person who rolled gets to place a small figure called the Robber on a resource tile, shutting down production of resources for every settlement on that tile. Not surprisingly, players often target the settler with the most points.

In addition to deploying the Robber, players will usually stop trading with any clear leader. In tandem, these two lines of attack can reduce a front-runner's progress to a crawl. Meanwhile, lagging opponents have multiple avenues for catching up.

All of this means that players must use strategy and move smartly, but even flawless play doesn't necessarily lead to easy victory. This is why kids can play with adults, or beginners with experts, and everyone stays involved.

"When a lot of us saw it, we thought this was the definition of a great game," says Pete Fenlon, CEO of Mayfair Games, Settlers' English-language distributor. "In every turn you're engaged, and even better, you're engaged in other people's turns. There are lots of little victories—as opposed to defeats—and perpetual hope. Settlers is one of those perfect storms."

If you like playing games—of any sort—and have people to play with, go pick up a copy and introduce yourself, and them, to Catan.  You'll be glad of it.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

With all due apologies to Inigo Montoya . . .

This is what the president promised us:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

So, what's he doing about it? Well, according to the Washington Times,

The Obama administration, which has boasted about its efforts to make government more transparent, is rolling back rules requiring labor unions and their leaders to report information about their finances and compensation.

The Labor Department noted in a recent disclosure that “it would not be a good use of resources” to bring enforcement actions against union officials who do not comply with conflict of interest reporting rules passed in 2007. . . .

The regulation, known as the LM-30 rule, was at the heart of a lawsuit that the AFL-CIO filed against the department last year. One of the union attorneys in the case, Deborah Greenfield, is now a high-ranking deputy at Labor.

And courtesy of Michelle Malkin:

I wrote two weeks ago about transparency killer Ron Sims, the King County WA bureaucrat nominated to the no. 2 spot at HUD by supposed transparency savior Barack Obama. Those in his backyard who know him best know the lengths Sims has gone to in order to obstruct public disclosure and stop taxpayers from finding out the truth about his office’s shady dealings.

As I mentioned in the column, blogger Stefan Sharkansky sued Sims over his refusal to release public records related to voter fraud during the 2004 contested gubernatorial election. Today, Sharkansky reports, Sims and King Count settled for $225,000, one of the largest settlements for public records violations in state history.

I think someone in the administration needs to go look up “transparent” in a good dictionary.

A pastoral comment on Sarah Palin

I forgot to mention this yesterday, what with everything else going on, but I have another post up over on Conservatives4Palin.  Counsel for leaders within the church is also of value for Christians called to leadership outside the church, since I believe exercising Christian leadership in the marketplace and in government is an important form of Christian ministry.

On this blog in history: January 26-31, 2008

Whose table?
A brief reflection on the Lord's Supper.

The Jesus heresy?
You can't be properly Christ-centered without being Trinitarian; worshiping Jesus without the Father and the Spirit isn't really worshiping Jesus at all.

Church as consumer option?
I'm looking forward to following up on this one by reading Skye Jethani's The Divine Commodity:  Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity.

Justice and mercy
On the need to affirm the justice of God, and why even his mercy is, in a way, an act of his justice.  I want to go back to this one at some point and develop it at greater length.

GCNC video

This is a catchall post for the video of the various sessions as I find it:

Tim Keller, "The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry" (Acts 19:21-41)

John Piper, "Feed the Flame of God’s Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel" (2 Timothy 1:1-12)

Philip Ryken, "The Pattern of Sound Words" (2 Timothy 1:13-2:13)

Mark Driscoll, "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:14-26)

K. Edward Copeland, "Shadowlands:  Pitfalls and Parodies of Gospel-Centered Ministry" (2 Timothy 3:1-9)

Bryan Chapell, "Preach the Word!" (2 Timothy 3:10-4:5)

C. J. Mahaney, "The Pastor's Charge" (1 Peter 5:1-4)

Ajith Fernando, "Gospel-Faithful Mission in the New Christendom"

Conference Panel Discussion

Ligon Duncan, "Finishing Well" (2 Timothy 4:6-22)

D. A. Carson, "That By All Means I Might Win Some: Faithfulness and Flexibility in Gospel Proclamation" (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

On a completely different note, but also pertaining to conferences

check this out—it's Heather McDougal at her most unfetteredly creative.  I don't know if I dream dreams like this, but if I do, I wish I remembered them.

7 quick takes: GCNC edition

(GCNC being the Gospel Coalition 2009 National Conference, which I attended earlier this week, for those who might not know.  For those not familiar with 7 Quick Takes Friday, it's hosted by Jennifer F. over at Conversion Diary.)

>1<

Of all the great preachers and all the great sermons I heard (including C. J. Mahaney's, which was essentially a plenary session scheduled as a workshop), the one that—I don't want to say impressed me most, because I don't want to come across as a dispassionate observer doing some sort of ranking, and I don't want to say moved or touched me most, because different messages did that differently—but the one that I keep coming back to the most was Mark Driscoll's.  As he himself noted (and many others commented that evening), it wasn't a typical Mark Driscoll sermon, because of the text assigned; I don't know who was responsible for breaking up 2 Timothy or by what logic he was given 2 Timothy 2:14-26, but it was clearly a God appointment of a most unexpected sort.  If you want to look at the sermon outline, it's up here.

What impressed me the most about this sermon wasn't its homiletical brilliance or its practical usefulness, but rather that I do not believe I have ever in my life seen a preacher so completely submitted to—even conquered by—a biblical text.  At one point, he described the passage as an anvil on which he'd been beating his head, and he was clearly preaching under a sense of deep, deep conviction, brokenness before God, and repentance—and preaching out of that sense, bringing that powerfully alive in the room.  I've long respected Mark Driscoll, even though I've heard some harsh criticisms of him, for his devotion to the gospel, his vision for ministry, and his sheer guts (I grew up in Washington state, I know what Seattle is like); this week, I saw him model a defenseless openness to the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that I have never seen nor—to be completely honest—experienced before in preaching.  He didn't have to do that, on a worldly level; I suspect he felt the Spirit driving him to, but even so, the courage that it took to lay himself that bare before the Scripture, to let the word of God challenge and convict him that deeply, and then to preach that, inspired a holy awe in me.  At some point, God is no doubt going to hit me that hard through his word; at some point, maybe he did, and I refused to stand to the mark.  When that day comes (again?), I now have his example to try to live up to.  It's a great gift, if a daunting one.

>2<

Speaking of courage, I should also express my deep appreciation for John Piper, who summarized the main point of 2 Timothy 1:1-12 (and by extension, he argued, of the whole letter; I can't speak for anyone else, but he convinced me) as "Timothy, keep feeding the white-hot flame of God's gift in you, namely, the gift of unashamed courage to speak openly of Christ and suffer for his gospel."  I appreciate him because he wasn't just preaching about his topic, he was preaching it, and preaching through it.  He declared,

If you ask Paul, “How do I feed the white-hot flame of God’s gift of unashamed courage to speak openly of Christ and to suffer for the gospel?” he answers, By the power of God (verse 8)—the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. And if you ask, “How do I express the fullness of this power?” he answers in 2:1, Be empowered by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And if you ask him, “How do I receive this ongoing grace?” he answers, Timothy, this grace is coming to you right now through the word of God. God’s grace is coming to you in my words. “I have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that I might understand the things freely given me by God. And I impart them in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit” (adapted from 1 Corinthians 2:12-13).

These aren’t ordinary words, Timothy. They are God’s words. You were with me on the beach in Miletus. Do you remember what I said as I left? I said, “I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is powerful to build you up [in courage!] and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32).

The answer, Timothy, is that you feed the white-hot flame of unashamed courage to suffer for the gospel by preaching to yourself the foundational truths of this letter. And you feed the courage of your people the same way. God has ordained that his sovereign grace comes to you with power for unashamed courage through my God-given words.

(That, note, is from the posted text, not a transcript.)  Now, it's one thing to say those words, and there are other preachers who could do that.  It's something else again to preach them as if you believe them, not only in theory, not at some point in the future, not as a possibility, but for that moment, for that sermon, for the people to whom you're preaching—and that's what the Rev. Dr. Piper did, passionately, in the expectation that what he was preaching about, God would do in us.  I don't think I've ever felt so much in the crosshairs of a sermon in my life, and I'm not sure I ever will again.

>3<

I'm very grateful to have been present for C. J. Mahaney's talk, but I have both a confession and a small regret about that.  I was there looking forward to his listed topic (he'd originally told the organizers that he would speak on "Trinitarian Pastoral Ministry"), but that's not what he spoke on; he actually spoke on "The Pastor's Charge," from 1 Peter 5:1-4, and if I'd known that, I probably would have been in another workshop.  I'm glad I wasn't, though.  I do regret the fact that I had too much blood in my caffeine stream—I'd only had one can of Pepsi and no tea all day, which just wasn't enough caffeine at that point, and I would have known that if I'd thought about it—and so I had a hard time shifting gears mentally to catch up to the Rev. Mahaney; I even started to crash a bit early on.  By the grace of God, though, he sent me a second wind, and I'm grateful for that gift, because it was a beautiful and encouraging message on shepherding God's flock; I'll definitely be meditating on this going forward, and I plan to watch the video so that I can catch things I missed in my initial mental sluggishness.  Jared Wilson asked on Twitter, "Anyone else feel like Mahaney was preaching specifically to them?" and I think it's safe to say that many of us there did—probably most of us, at one point or another.

I particularly appreciate this—he was quoting someone, but I didn't get down whom:  "The shepherd must know he is one of the Shepherd's needy and loved sheep."  Amen.

>4<

After Tim Keller's address on Acts 19:21-41, which opened the conference, the thought crossed my mind that I could go home right then and the conference would have been worth the money.  I had no intention of doing anything that silly, of course, but if I had, it would have been.  I've done a bit of posting on some of the idols in our culture, and in the church in this country, but before Tuesday afternoon I'd never thought quite so starkly about the fact that Paul always challenged the idols of the people to whom he spoke, and that we cannot expect to see the transforming power of the gospel in our churches if we don't do the same.  As Ben Patterson likes to put it, we can't just tell people what to say "yes" to, we have to tell them what that means they have to say "no" to.  

The Rev. Dr. Keller did a brilliant job of laying out what it means to discern, expose, and destroy the idols we face—in our own lives, no less than in the church and the culture—and how we do that; and he was unsparing in warning us of the risk we take in so doing, making the point multiple times that idolatry in all its forms is violent at its core.  As radical feminists would say of patriarchy, idolatry is founded on violence, and rests on violence for its legitimation.  There was a lot of wonderful material in his message, but I think I most appreciated his prescription for dealing with idolatry:  rather than trying to hack away at the loves that have become idols in people's lives, help them to love Jesus more, and thus restore those other loves to their proper place and proportion.

>5<

The pastoral application of his message made itself known that evening in one of the random conversations I had (and at any event like this, the random conversations are among the joys of being there); I wound up talking with a woman who was worried about a friend back home who I guess has been doing some heavy wrestling with despair.  As we were talking about this woman's concern for her friend and her efforts to be an agent of grace in this friend's life—she was really struggling hard to find a way to pierce the armor of her friend's despair—we remembered the Rev. Dr. Keller's comment about people who say that they know God has forgiven them but that they can't forgive themselves:  he argued that people who talk that way do so because they're in thrall to an idol, and the idol of course won't forgive them because idols never do.  What you need to do, he contended, is to identify the idol, expose it, and destroy it.  When this came up in our conversation, this woman's face lit with a joyful smile, because she knew what her friend's idol was, and that word showed her what she needed to do to set her friend free to really hear the gospel of grace.  I'm praying for her for the success of her ministry.

>6<

I greatly appreciated the panel discussion Wednesday evening, for a lot of reasons.  One rather odd one is that Ligon Duncan, one of the participants, has a massive pulpit presence—I don't know that he's actually that big a man, but the way he's built, and with that deep, powerful Southern voice of his with his grand, grave cadences—which I think combined with his reputation to work against him with some of the folks there (judging by the semi-sotto voce conversation going on behind me through the first chunk of his message); he doesn't exactly project humility in the pulpit, and it was good to see the humble side of him in the evening conversation before he rose to preach the next day.

More than that, though, there was a lot of experience, and a lot of humble wisdom, and a lot of hard-earned lessons up on that stage that evening, which the participants shared in a remarkably open fashion.  It was comforting to hear from these successful veteran pastors that times of brokenness and failure aren't necessarily disqualifying, but that brokenness and failure are among the things God uses to make us useful; coming just a few months after I heard Craig Barnes say much the same thing, and combined with their firm testimony that Jesus will never abandon us in such times—and that if we will rely utterly on him and his word, that will be enough—it came as a real word of grace.  There was a note of rue in Crawford Loritts' voice as he quoted an old proverb (one I'd never heard before) to the effect that "God never uses anything that comes to him together," and went on to describe suffering as God's marinade for our souls; but there was also a deep faith that had learned to trust God through suffering, and I greatly appreciated it.

>7<

One of the real blessings of this conference was the way in which I felt, time and again, Paul's heart for Timothy—not just indirectly, but coming from the speakers and directed toward us, and especially those of us who are younger in ministry.  John Piper really set the tone on that, and it carried through the whole conference, in various ways.  (In Mark Driscoll's case, as a younger preacher who felt the challenge of his assigned text deeply, he really preached his text as Timothy, as the one receiving the message, rather than from Paul's position.)  Other than the Rev. Dr. Piper, I think I felt it the most strongly from Ligon Duncan, speaking on 2 Timothy 4:6-22, as he shared Paul's appeal with us to do everything possible to be sure we cross the finish line.  He didn't soft-pedal the fact that that isn't easy; as Paul did for Timothy, he made no bones of the truth that just because we're faithful to God doesn't mean we won't be opposed, doesn't mean we won't be betrayed, doesn't mean we won't be abandoned and end up alone.  After all, that's what happened to Paul, and it's what happened to Jesus, and if we're following in their footsteps, why should we expect any different?  But the saving grace is that Jesus has been there, and so he was with Paul in his suffering, and he will be with us as well when those times come; his Spirit will be with us, through whom he will give us what we need to run the race, to fight the good fight, to cross the finish line, if we will just rely on him.

What math class taught me about pastoral ministry

Show your work.  Process matters—it's more important that you tried to solve the problem the right way than it is that you got the right result, because it's more predictive of whether or not you'll get the next answer right, and the one after that, and the one after that.  What matters isn't coming to the right conclusion by whatever method works for you, but whether or not you understand the real problem and how it works; shortcuts may seem to work at first, but in the long run they just mess you up and put you behind.

Pastoral ministry likewise isn't primarily about getting the "right answer" to produce the desired results; it isn't about whatever seems to work.  Rather, it's about all the things that lie behind that.  When you get right down to it, being a shepherd in the flock of Christ (in the flock, because even as we serve as shepherds, we're still ourselves sheep) isn't about doing, it's about being; skills are valuable and important, but in the last analysis, it's not really about the skills you have, it's about your character and who you are.

To be sure, doing is involved, because being is expressed in doing—character is not only expressed but realized (one might even say incarnated) in action, and to say (as I would) that pastoral ministry is a way of life is necessarily to say that it involves the activities and patterns of behavior that make up that way of life.  All true, and all important.  That said, you could have someone who possesses all the skills and does all the activities of a pastor, who has the title of pastor and the paychecks to prove it, who is in no real sense a pastor.  In point of fact, all too many churches do (and some of those churches are quite large and successful on the outside).

This is one reason why—and this is going to sound quite odd and countercultural, and strangely connected—I don't agree with those who bemoan the language requirements which are set by some of our denominations and seminaries.  I've read and heard many pastors treat their knowledge of Greek and Hebrew as functionally useless, and the time spent learning those languages as time that could have been better spent on "useful," "practical" things like more counseling classes and classes in administration; I think such attitudes and complaints are misguided and unprofitable.

Now, in saying this I don't disparage counseling classes, if they're the right sort, or the value of administrative ministry; I'm sufficiently ungifted as an administrator to have no doubt of the importance of such tasks, and the people who taught me pastoral counseling gave me a great deal of insight into how people function, both as individuals and as groups.  I'm particularly grateful for the introduction to family systems theory; nearly a decade on, I'm still working to really understand it (I need to reread Friedman's Generation to Generation again here soon), but what I have grasped has been incredibly valuable over the years.

I say that particularly because that work and that study has been valuable in more ways than just the work of counseling; it's not just about programs and skills and checklists, it helps me understand people, and that's important in everything I do (as it is in everything anyone does).  Thus, for instance, it's made me a better preacher, because you can't preach effectively over any significant period of time to people you don't know.  You can't really minister effectively in any way to people you don't know, and so anything that helps you come to know and understand people is of great worth across the whole range of pastoral ministry.  It's a kind of knowledge and understanding that forms us and shapes us as people to lead and care for other people, and that's the kind of learning that helps us to be good pastors.

The same is true of the time and effort spent learning Greek and Hebrew.  This is, as I said, an odd and countercultural claim, in the face of the many pastors who disparage their ability to decline eimi or distinguish between the Niphal, the Hiphil and the Hitpael, but it's true nevertheless.  The disparagement of language skills rests on two assumptions:  one, that they are only useful in preaching, and two, that one can preach just as effectively without them.  I'm firmly convinced that both of these assumptions are false, and for the same reason:  we're called to lead from the Scriptures (as John Piper and others reminded me this week), and to do that, it's at least as important that we understand the Scriptures from which we're leading as it is  that we understand the people whom we're leading.  As such, anything that helps us go deeper into the word of God is of great worth in every part of pastoral ministry, including but going far beyond preaching.

Since the root and foundation of leadership is self-leadership, this begins with the effect of the word of God on ourselves, in forming and shaping our souls.  I will grant, certainly, that if working with the language is just an academic exercise, if you're only open to the word of God on an intellectual level as a kind of linguistic jigsaw puzzle, then yes, the intricacies of Greek morphology and Hebrew grammar will be a barren field indeed, sowed with the salt of skepticism and watered with the blood of indifference; but the fault there lies not in the language, but in the student, and no one who approaches the text in such a way is likely to find any life in it no matter what they do.  At that point, the only ministry that remains is worldly ministry, for the heart of truly pastoral ministry—the gospel—isn't present, and isn't likely to be.

The reason for knowing the original languages, for studying the cultures into which the original authors wrote (as in, for instance, the invaluable work of Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey), and for other learning of that sort is that it makes us better able to read the word of God and study it seriously.  The value in that isn't in the information we gather, but in the way that information sharpens our eyes, opens our ears, and pricks our hearts to see God, to hear him speak to us, and to increase our love for him.  The purpose in all this is to clear out those things that insulate us from the gospel, and to intentionally open ourselves up for God to work on our hearts and minds through it (including breaking down all those things that we use to defend ourselves from the gospel).  The goal isn't to be a scholar and be able to write papers, though that may have its uses:  the goal is that, in the words of Richard of Chichester, we may know Christ more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly, day by day by day.

The key here is that if we truly seek to be ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, if we want to be pastors in any meaningful sense, we need to remember that our ministry isn't redemptive—only the ministry of Christ is redemptive—and that we really have nothing of eternal value to give the people we serve except Jesus Christ and him crucified, resurrected, and ascended; we need to repent of the attitude Crawford Loritts exposed and dissected so brilliantly and mercilessly during the panel discussion at the GCNC:  "There is an arrogance in the preachers of this generation in the tacit assumption that God is inarticulate."  I would only add that that arrogance is multiplied in the implicit assumption that we as mere human beings are capable of making up for that presumed deficit in God.

To draw from the Rev. Dr. Piper's plenary message at the GCNC Tuesday night, we can only live the life to which Jesus calls us by the power of God, which is by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, which comes to us through the word of God; it's by his word that he speaks his grace into our lives so that we would experience and live into (and out of) the power of our redemption, and so it's that word and that alone that we should seek to give those whom we serve—indeed, it's the only way we can serve them—in administration and counseling no less than in the pulpit.  To do that, we need to honor our first responsibility as in fact our first responsibility:  to marinate ourselves in the word of God, let it soak into us in every way possible, in thoughtful reading and reflective thought, and of course in constant prayer.

As a result, I think the criticism that seminaries spend too much time on "academic" things like languages and exegesis and not enough on "practical" things like counseling is misguided, for two reasons.  First, the latter are, in reality, applications of the former, and as any good preacher knows, one must first present the truth before one can apply it.  Second, the former are things which can in fact be taught in a classroom setting; the latter, I don't believe can be—they must be learned by doing.  (The same is true of preaching, but one can do preaching in a classroom setting and learn some of what one needs to know from that; this isn't true of most of the other applied pastoral arts.)  The most that a seminary can do is train one in the use of the tools for these aspects of ministry and give one a sense for how to learn in the doing (which is what, among other things, field education is supposed to be for, though in my experience it's rather hit and miss as to whether it succeeds in that purpose); to become good at such matters takes time and experience and the lessons of failure and the faithful wounds of trusted friends and colleagues in ministry as we minister together.

It takes all these things to shape our mindset and form our souls and give us the opportunity to develop the confidence to take on the responsibility which God has entrusted to us to be heralds and ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ—which is, in the end, the confidence that God is faithful even when we're not, and that his gospel is sufficient even though we're not, and that his love is enough even when ours isn't.  The only way to be a pastor is to attend to the process—to what God is doing in our souls and in the souls of the flock he has placed in our care—and to be a pastor, trusting him for everything.  There are no shortcuts, and there is no substitute.  Just show your work, and let God be the answer.

First reflections on the last few days

I'm back home from the Gospel Coalition's 2009 National Conference (henceforth GCNC), Entrusted with the Gospel:  Living the Vision of 2 Timothy, and I have somewhat mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, I wish it could have been longer.  The presenters were, as one would expect, phenomenal, and I'll have some things to say about the various messages over the next little while; as well, I had some wonderful conversations over the course of the conference.  In particular, I had the privilege and pleasure of meeting Jared Wilson in person and talking with him a bit, which I thoroughly enjoyed—it's no surprise to find that he's as much a man of the gospel and as appealing a person face to face as he is in print, but that's no less a joy for all that—and of running into (via pure God appointment) Dave Moody, one of my classmates at Regent and also a fellow pastor in the PC(USA), whom I always appreciated but hadn't seen in years.  Put all together, it was wonderfully refreshing and energizing, and I do wish it could keep going.

On the other hand, I already have more than I could absorb in a month of Sundays, and if it did keep going, I'd overload my processing capacity before much longer.  It's very human, confronted with a pleasure (and the pleasures of this conference were sharp and deep), to want to prolong it—but deep pleasures are a heady wine indeed, and not only is it true that the body can only absorb so much, the spirit can only absorb so much, before it falls to staggering.

It's worth noting, though, that I don't mean this in quite the way that many probably assume.  At one of the workshops I attended, the presenter spoke of "information overload," but that's not really what I'm talking about; I didn't feel that at all.  Yes, there was a lot of information, and a lot of ideas, and I'm sure that I'll spend a fair bit of time thinking about them, and probably writing about some of them, and that over time they'll make their way into sermons; but I never felt like my head was overstuffed.  I told someone Tuesday night that I felt like I'd been stretched in several directions—but it wasn't my mind that felt stretched, it was my soul.

I think, actually, that the conference served to illustrate a point made by Ligon Duncan, that preaching is not merely information transfer—that while certainly information is transferred, that takes place in order to serve the broader purpose.  The principal point of preaching is that God has chosen to work through it for our transformation; Jesus meets us in his word, and his Holy Spirit operates through it to grow and change us, to the glory and pleasure of God the Father.  What I experienced these last few days wasn't primarily intellectual and informational, though I certainly learned a great deal, and that in itself will take a lot of time and thought to process; rather, it was holistic, God working on my soul in the fullest-orbed sense of that word as the whole of my life in and before him.  Like I said, I feel . . . stretched, and in some ways I didn't expect, and am still feeling out.  This is a good thing.  God is good.

Crown and throne

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.
No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright.

Worship isn't about our experience, but that doesn't mean our experience is meaningless; and I will tell you that standing to sing that Tuesday night with 3300 brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us singing at the top of our lungs, gave me chills.  I have a sense of what it means that the Lord is enthroned on the praises of his people, because I could feel it, just a little.

All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou has died for me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail throughout eternity.

Let all the thirsty come

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.”

—Isaiah 55:1-3 (ESV)

The really interesting thing about this is that this invitation and this promise are offered to people who were already outwardly members of the people of God. The nations aren’t excluded here, to be sure—the invitation is given to all who are thirsty—but there’s no explicit summons to them, either, and the invitation is framed in terms of what God did in and for David. The point, one which Isaiah’s been making all along, is clear: though Israel has heard the law, and has heard the prophets, and they have all kinds of head knowledge about God, that hasn’t translated for them into any kind of real relationship with God. They consider him their God because they’re Israelites and he’s the God of Israel, and doesn’t everybody in this country worship God?—but many of them haven’t answered his invitation, and maybe haven’t even really heard it before. They haven’t learned that there’s more to their faith than just being a faithful templegoer.

Indeed, there’s far more. The challenge to us of Isaiah’s expansive invitation is—do we still need to hear it? Have we really accepted it, or are we no different than the Israelites? In this country, it’s very easy to be a Christian, and that means there are a lot of folks who are outwardly Christian for all the wrong reasons, with no inward reality, no real faith in Christ. The church has to shoulder a lot of the blame for that, of course, because there are a lot of churches in this country that don’t give people God’s invitation, that don’t challenge people with the call of the gospel; it’s easier not to, after all, easier just to give people what they already know they want to hear. Even for the church, it’s easier to serve junk food. But underneath and through it all, God’s invitation still goes out: “Come, all of you who hunger and thirst; come to me, that you may live.” And we need to ask ourselves: have we really done that, are we really living in God? Or do we still need to accept it?

(Excerpted from “The Invitation”)

New gig

The folks over at C4P have been kind enough to invite me to join their team, and I've been honored to accept; my first post is up.  I started off working from my post on the citizen punditry, and (as is the way) it evolved from there.