Sojourners at it Again…
July 31, 2005
I just ridded myself of my email subscription to SojoMail, the email alert arm of Sojourners. I think Jim Wallis probably means well, but it’s hard not to see this organization as a shill for the Democrat Party, or at least a big-government promoting organization that offers few new ideas that conform to “God’s Politics”. The below email is the last I expect to get from them, and it’s so slanted and one-sided that I finally said, “enough’s enough”. When you guys want to really try to have a conversation that doesn’t end up with you reciting the Democrat playbook (okay, I’ll grant you have at least a tepid pro-life commitment; fair enough), then come talk to me again.
Dear Byron,
Take a break from this summer’s heat wave and help shape the debate on Social Security.
The discussion about Social Security raises fundamental moral questions about government and the common good; about how we honor commands to “Honor your father and your mother” and care for those in need.
The current focus on privatization in the Social Security debate is too narrow. Private accounts gamble with Social Security’s basic guarantee. They threaten the safety net for too many, cut benefits, and do not address the coming Social Security shortfall or extend the program’s solvency. This affects us all. YOU can help protect the guarantee.
»Click here to sign our petition.
Without Social Security, nearly half of elderly Americans would be in poverty. For nearly two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their income. Over one-third of benefits from Social Security go to non-retirees: widows, the disabled, and low-income kids. YOUR voice can help protect them.
Tell members of Congress to read today’s issue of Roll Call (a leading Capitol Hill paper) and spend their August recess reflecting on five principles for keeping Social Security’s promise for all God’s people.
With this Roll Call ad, Call to Renewal and Sojourners have launched a campaign to save Social Security. We need YOUR help! In coming weeks, we’ll offer ways to lift YOUR voice by:
* Helping us place another national ad to “put a face on Social Security.”
* Joining a Social Security birthday party near you on August 13 or14.
* Attending a town hall meeting sponsored by the faith community.
* Visiting elected leaders in their home states.
For today, simply join – and start shaping – the discussion. Tell your members of Congress YOU will be watching.
100 People Who are Screwing Up America
July 30, 2005
100 People Who are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37): With a title like that, and coming from Bernie Goldberg, whose book “Bias” was a hit with me (exposing Dan Rather, CBS News, and the MSM from the inside-out), I couldn’t wait to see who made his list, so even though I didn’t buy the book, 10 minutes at Barnes and Noble were enough for me to peruse his list of the top 100 in order to check my agreement with him.
There were probably 30-40 names I didn’t recognize at all, or if I’d heard of them, couldn’t place. That’s as it should be: if I knew every one of them, how much help would Bernie’s book be? I did know all of the top 10, headed, of course, by Michael Moore, and containing Teddy Kennedy, Pinch Sulsberger (editor of the New York Times, and #2), Ralph Neas of P.A.W., Jesse Jackson—you know, the usual suspects. Interestingly enough, though I didn’t read carefully through the “qualifications” of the 30-40 I didn’t know, there were only two (well, maybe three; I’ll qualify in a moment) whom I recognized as conservatives…and I happen to agree with Bernie on both of them.
The reason for my asterisk (“maybe three”) is that Bernie included Jimmy Swaggart on the list. Is he a conservative? Beats me, and I could care less. I disagree with Bernie about placing Jimmy on the list, not because he’s not made himself a disgrace—because he certainly has—but because I don’t think he holds nearly enough influence any longer to make a top 100 list.
Now, for the two conservatives who made his list: Michael Savage and Judge Roy Moore. I agree with Bernie on both, as I said. Michael Savage just utterly turns me off. I cannot stomach his radio program. He is crude, he is rude, and he plays to the stereotypes unfairly used by liberals to describe most other conservatives. If every conservative were like Michael Savage, I’d…well, I’d be in a fix, because I don’t care for his ways in the least. Michael Savage is not helping the cause; I wish he’d go away and be quiet.
Judge Roy Moore is a man of a different sort. He is a genuinely good guy, I think; he is a man of courage and conviction. I take it that he’s a Christian man. That said, he chose the wrong tactics for the wrong battle, and in the process, I believe that he (unwittingly) did a lot more harm than good. There is a time to “go to the mat” for what we believe; I do not believe that a monument in a courthouse is the right time, and he managed to get himself tossed off the court—when his legal rulings could have been helpful—for the sake of his holy war. I know he’s held in high esteem by a lot of conservatives, and by most everyone who call themselves part of the “Religious Right” (whatever that is). But I don’t think Judge Roy is helping—and Bernie was right to put him there.
Christian Hype, Exhibit Next (The First “Hypie”)
July 28, 2005
I have posted before in this space about my great distaste for “Christian hype”, defined as the overkill marketing done by some Christian organization in order to sell their products, often used to promote some upcoming conference that is sure to change your life. 
The all-time worst, of course, was PromiseKeepers’ promotion of their February 2003 Pastors’ Conference, wherein the advertisers lied to us big-time, promising that “this conference will forever change what it means to be a pastor in America”. I kid you not; that is the garbage they dumped into our pastoral mailboxes by the truckload.
Well, installment next, perhaps not as egregious, but over-the-top hype 
all the same, comes to us from Injoy (one of the chiefs of Christian hype); it is a little piece I got yesterday regarding their upcoming “Thrive” Women’s Simulcast Conference, and the promise for this conference is that it is “a conference for women UNLIKE ANY OTHER“.
Which means, of course, that it is a conference for women just like all the rest.
And for this, I am happy to award to Injoy, and the “Thrive” Women’s Simulcast, my first ever “Hypie Award”, bestowed periodically upon purveyors of Christian hype. You’re welcome.
File 13 is calling.
The Fundy Top 500
July 27, 2005
I’m sorry, but this image just cracks me up whenever I run across it:
I guess that there is this webring of 500 Fundamentalist websites or something, but tell me, is that the image that you’d want gracing your page? A guy in a suit, with his fist raised and finger pointed, bent slightly, holding (apparently) a Bible in his hand, preaching (I think). I just have to ask, is that the best that they could do? Arms flailing, hammering home some point (and judging by a whole lot of the Fundamentalist preaching I’ve heard, a point that may have little to actually do with the Bible being held in the hand), no doubt sweating profusely. Sheesh…that’s just a little creepy for me…
Should American Christians Support or Oppose This One?
July 27, 2005
I hate the fact that, in my town, there is one “flavor” of cable TV: either take everything that the company calls “basic cable”—all 60-odd channels of it—or take nothing at all. And, of course, pay an exorbitant price to do so…but that’s another issue. In response to this, Agape Press reports that 25 groups, including Citizens for Community Values and the Parents Television Council have written to Congress to ask Congress to force cable companies to offer true choice—some sort of a la carte way of doing cable TV or something like that. Here’s the article:
Coalition Calls on Congress to Make Companies Offer Consumers Cable Choice
Sounds great, huh? What Christian could oppose this?
This Christian.
For one thing, there are untruths in the words of these organizations themselves—not intentional untruths, but notice these lines:
…consumers are currently “forced to take channels that we don’t want in our homes, and we’re having to guard the TV the way we would the front door to stop intruders from assaulting our children.”
“Cable choice should be at the top of the national dialogue in terms of what is allowed into the home,” Isett says. That dialogue should involve how “to give consumers and parents a choice [concerning] not only what they bring into the home…”
No…I am categorically not forced to take channels into my home, and I have a choice already. My choice is to cut off the cable altogether, a choice I made a few months back, and one that a lot more Christian parents ought to seriously consider.
My problems with this idea doesn’t stop with the false premises upon which these are built. My next (related) problem is that this represents an abdication of parental responsibility in favor of the power of the state. Now…there are some things that the state ought to regulate, and the line might be a fine one at times: I don’t believe that there is a place for Howard Stern on the public airways, although I’d allow him all the private-access venues that he is willing to buy in order to spew his garbage. But this crosses the line in reliance upon government to fix a problem that can be fixed by citizens: they won’t “force” their cable channels on you if you don’t pay the bill. Nobody has broken down my door in an attempt to force me to install cable so that I’ll be forced to pull up a chair in front of “Queer Eye”.
My third problem is a political one: how can we with integrity be in favor of “smaller federal government” if we want to run to Congress and ask it to, with one fell swoop, override whatever regulations exist in all 50 states? If…and I think that that’s dubious, but if this is an issue for legislation, it surely is not one for legislation at a federal level. I want less Washington telling business and citizens what to do, generally speaking, not more.
“Self-Made Man” or Selfish Coward?
July 26, 2005
USA Today ran today an article entitled Exit the “Self-Made Man”, a piece on a “daughter’s documentary” (airing tonight on PBS’s P.O.V.). The piece—and undoubtedly the documentary—are going to paint Bob Stern as a hero, a man with the courage to end his own life on his own terms. Such are considered “heroes” these days…
Sorry, no sale.
On the video Stern made a few hours before he took the gutsy step of blowing his brains out, Stern says, “I’m trying to make a judgment as to what to do…I am 77 years old. I still have my sanity and my reasoning capability. I have been reasonably financially successful in this world, using my smarts, very thoroughly learning and analyzing a particular situation and using the cost/benefit ratio. And where the benefit far exceeds the cost, then I go for the deal.” As the article states, Stern is scheduled to have surgery the next day for an aortic aneurysm; doctors have predicted a good outcome. But because he has a history of stroke and heart disease, and because he has as-yet-untreated prostate cancer, he believes that the risk is too great (how’s that for unbelievably ironic, skewed “logic”—the “risk is too great”—what’s the risk, sir, of putting a loaded .22 into your mouth?). He fears that surgery will leave him less the man that he wants to be, so he’s ending it all. The article states that the documentary shows “his wife and grown son watch (his video) helplessly”. His daughter, one Susan Stern, has produced the documentary to honor her dad, ostensibly, and says, “this is not a partisan issue. It’s a personal issue. Everybody gets to have their own death, and nobody has the right to tell them how to do it or how to talk about it.”
Nice conclusion, Suz…
Questions for the would-be Bob Stern sympathizers of this world:
1. If it’s such a noble act, why doesn’t Bob consult his family before eating lead? Surely, they’ll understand and load the gun for him!
2. Do the concerns of anyone else—wife, kids, grandkids, friends, community—have any bearing on a person’s “personal” decision?
3. If this isn’t selfishness to the max, how does selfishness to the max look any different from this?
4. Bob Stern wasn’t even terminal, for Pete’s sake. Is suicide the answer when life gets you down, or when you’ve got some serious (but treatable) health problem?
5. Can you say, “individualism run amuck?”
6. Susan Stern posits the final question: “If we celebrate the self-made man, can we celebrate the self-made death?”
Who’s celebrating the self-made man? And why? So…was Bob Stern a “self-made man”, or a selfish coward?
Church DisciplinG Equals Church DisciplinE
July 26, 2005
Christianity Today’s August Issue has as its cover focus the topic of Church Discipline. I found the five articles to be tremendous on this subject that is conveniently/sadly overlooked by much of the evangelical church today. Particularly interesting is an interview with Washington pastor Mark Dever:
In the lead article, Marlin Jeschke says, “every society on the face of the earth, past and present, has its codes of conduct, identifying behaviors it will not tolerate. The only questions are: first, who or what defines that code of conduct; and, second, how are violators of that code dealt with?”
How, indeed. Sadly, the answer from altogether too many evangelical churches seems to be, “not at all!” And we wonder why the church in America is anemic…surely, this is part of the answer.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
