OK, so there aren’t too many hazards living in Iowa as compared to anywhere else in the USA, but one, for sure, is that every four years we get some ridiculous media attention leading up to the caucuses. They’re coming up this Thursday, and then, please God, maybe we can be done with the attention and the advertising for a while.

A couple of weeks ago a reporter from Newsweek contacted an elder at Noelridge and wanted to know if she could come interview some of our folks to do an online piece on Iowans in preparation for the caucuses. The end result is a three-minute video that most prominently features our pastor, Richard Marsceau. You can also hear me plunking away at the piano and singing through the last minute or so. Pretty cool stuff.

Watch the video here. Sorry, Mom and Dad, it’ll probably be impossible to watch via dial-up. I’ve got it saved, though, so remind me next time you come visit.

I’m not planning to write on that topic today, but Jonah Goldberg did, and it’s worth reading his column.

Written in response to the hubbub over the recent coming-to-light of Sen. Larry Craig’s actions in an airport bathroom, Goldberg notes that the Left’s condemnation isn’t typically over the (im)moral act, but rather over the hypocrisy that is demonstrated. Goldberg notes, however, that the Right hasn’t cornered the market on hypocrisy. He sums it up this way:

The point is simply this: Hypocrisy is bad, sure. But it’s a human failing that should fall upon the individual in question. What the left wants to do is use hypocrisy as a cudgel to declare that conservative ideals are categorically illegitimate because some conservatives fail to live up to them. But we all fail to live up to our ideals sometimes (just ask John Edwards, who wants get rid of everyone’s SUV, save the one in his driveway). That’s sort of why we call them “ideals.” Most of us don’t fall as far as Larry Craig seems to have fallen, but that’s not necessarily an indictment of his arguments, it’s an indictment of the man.

It’s worth reading the whole article.

I understand from reading the news that President Bush gave the State of the Union address back on Tuesday night. I skipped it. I actually even avoided it – when I turned the TV on, it was in progress. I flipped to ESPN. This is a departure for me. I have long held great interest in State of the Union (let’s just call them SOTU for short) speeches. When I was in high school I used my boom box to record them off the radio onto a cassette so I could listen to them again later. In past years I have sat with rapt attention to the network of my choice and had a thrill of excitement as the Sergeant-at-Arms would walk in and declare, “Mister Speaker, the President of the United States!”. But not this year.

I have become disenchanted with politics these days. Not uninterested, mind you; nor would I say that they are unimportant. But I have become disappointed with all of my political leaders and the very system that they operate in. I am not excited about any of the political topics they are pushing. Gone are the days when I thought they might actually do something about Social Security reform. Gone are the hopes that some serious income tax reform might be in the works. Now we’re supposed to get excited about a higher minimum wage and even more money for education and social programs.

I have long been a supporter of President Bush. The first ballot I ever cast, back as a high-school student in Texas, included a vote for him to be Governor of Texas. I have voted for him twice in presidential elections. He’s made some decisions I’ve been very happy with. (Nominating John Roberts to the Supreme Court is one of my favorites.) But on fiscal and governance issues, he has disappointed me greatly. Gone are Reagan’s conservative ideals of less government, less spending, and lower taxes. Now we just have more programs. Gone are tightly-held ideals of less government regulation and free speech; we just sign McCain-Feingold and let the Supreme Court sort it out. And then there’s the war.

I haven’t written much about the war here. Initially I was in favor of it. I don’t really want to debate that case here now; I thought the president presented a compelling case, and it was good for us to go get rid of Saddam. But the mess we are in now seems more and more troubling. The sad part is that I don’t see a good exit strategy. I’m not convinced that sending more troops will help subdue things and finish off the war. (I’m not saying it won’t, I’m just not convinced that it will.) But cutting and running isn’t a viable option, either. At this point, I’m about out of ideas, other than to pray for wisdom for the leadership and safety for the troops.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get me excited about political goings-on again. I’d like to see a real conservative candidate from the Republican party for the 2008 election. If there were some real conservative principles championed, rather than just “my programs will be better than their programs”, maybe I’d be more interested. At least the Republicans have a better record on moral issues, though who knows how long that’ll last. The key difficulty here is that in our two-party system, my choice is either to vote for the Republican I’m unexcited about, or the Democrat I am even less excited about. And don’t start on me about third-party candidates – I know a wasted vote when I see one.

So this is probably as close as I’ll come on this blog to a political rant. Feel free to respond and interact. Tell me why I’m wrong (or right), and what suggestions you’d have for me. I am increasingly thankful that God’s priority is with individual hearts, not political influence.

A friend linked me to this story today, and it interested me enough to try to write down a few thoughts. According to the AP story, the National Association of Evangelicals has now decided to work with a leading scientific group to combat global warming.

“Whether God created the Earth in a millisecond or whether it evolved over billions of years, the issue we agree on is that it needs to be cared for today,” said Rich Cizik, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000 churches.

Eric Chivian, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, agreed, saying: “Scientists and evangelicals have discovered that we share a deeply felt common concern and sense of urgency about threats to life on Earth and that we must speak with one voice to protect it.”

The NAE is thus joining a statement signed by 86 evangelical leaders back in February 2006 to “fight global warming, saying that human-induced climate change is real, that its consequences will hit the poor the hardest, and that Christian moral convictions demand an urgent response.”

I think this move by the NAE is a mistake on several grounds.

1) Global Warming – maybe. Human-induced? Not so much.

This is probably my biggest issue with the environmentalist global-warning folks as a whole. I will agree that depending on how you look at climate data, it appears that our earth is getting a bit warmer. I will also note a bunch of caveats to that assertion, including the fact that we have a limited amount of historic data, and that the conclusions you can draw vary widely depending on what data set you choose to interpret. Remember, the Time Magazine headlines back in the 1970’s were wondering if we were going to enter a new ice age.

That all being said, even if we can conclude the earth is warming by fractions of a degree, you’re hard-pressed to prove that the warming is human-induced. While certainly human industry and automobiles generate gases that are nasty, there are large environmental processes at work that we don’t totally understand that also cause changes. I just don’t think we’re at a point where we can conclusively say that humans are causing global warming.

2) Where is our priority?

If a Christian organization is going to spend major amounts of time and money on an issue, there needs to be some careful prioritization of resources. For any Christian organization, number one should be advancing the kingdom of Jesus Christ. In the news story, it seems a torturous bit of stretching to deal with this issue: basically they claim that global warming leads to suffering for the poor, thus necessitating action to relieve that suffering. But I’m skeptical.

If you want to relieve the suffering of the poor, send ‘em food and supplies. Speak out against repressive governments that are hurting their people. There are lots of missions doing very practical work to help these people. We can support those missions. In my cost-benefit analysis, spending money to lobby the American government to enact standards to reduce gas emissions by industry and automobiles that might in turn affect the climate is a lot more cost for a lot less benefit. Sure, maybe twenty years from now we’ll have managed to cool the planet by a degree or so. But that won’t have provided food or water or medical supplies for the millions that are currently starving and sick. They’ll just be dead.

3) Strange Bedfellows

I want to be careful with this one. I’m not trying to say there’s anything inherently wrong with Christians working with non-Christians to attain mutual goals. But I am saying we have to be very careful. Even if we have some present mutual goals, our motivations and perhaps some of our long-term goals are different. Environmentalists see man as a destructive blight on the earth and in an extreme view think the earth would be much better off without mankind around. A Christian view, though, tells us that God purposely placed us here, created the Earth for us, and now commands us to cultivate and use it. Very different perspectives.

I will grant that even amongst Christian denominations there are various views on environmental care for the earth. I’ve heard the opinion that “it’s all gonna just go downhill and then burn, so use it up, baby!”. There is another school of thought that says that part of God’s plan for the Kingdom is redeeming the Earth from the Fall, in which case we should care for the earth and work to improve it. I’m not quite sure yet where I fall on that spectrum. We should be good stewards of the world that God has given us. And just in a practical sense, if we are trying to show God’s goodness to the world around us, part of that should include a desire to make the world a more pleasant place, which includes caring for the beauty of creation. But let’s make sure we keep it in perspective, and not start worshiping the created Earth instead of the Creator.

So, when all is said and done, I think the NAE has gone the wrong direction here. There are far better ways their money and time could be spent than in trying to push an environmental agenda.

Brilliant stuff from Jonah Goldberg today on the increasing desire of government to regulate the “little stuff”. He begins by listing everything the New York City Council banned or tried to ban in 2006. It’s a long list. And he notes some other bans around the country.

Then he pulls out a penetrating comment from deToqueville:

“It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones. …”

“Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will.”

Then Goldberg brings it home with stunning clarity (emphasis mine):

This is a typically penetrating insight, and one with new relevance these days. This country seems to have inverted de Tocqueville’s hierarchy. On countless fronts, the natural pastures of daily liberty have become circumscribed by dull-witted but well-meaning bureaucrats slapping down the paving stones of good intentions on the road to hell.

The rule of thumb for a free society should be that it infringes liberties rarely, but when it does so it is for important reasons. Today, that thumb has been cast down, Caesar-like, pointing in the opposite direction. We have democratized the small assaults on freedom so that everyone must endure them, while we caterwaul about the tyranny of any real inconvenience that might fall “disproportionately” on the few. We ban using trans fats for millions but flinch at the idea that some kid might have to endure the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence in school if it conflicts with his conscience. Everyone must surrender his shoes, his regular-sized toothpaste and shampoo at the airport, but we man the barricades to protect a few young Muslim men from being inconvenienced for an extra five minutes at the airport.

Free speech is most restricted where it is most important — in political contests near Election Day — while it is maximized to an absurd level at the fringes of culture and decency. Banning “hate speech” from everybody’s lips is a progressive priority, but electronic eavesdropping on a few terrorists is an impermissible leap down the slippery slope to the police state.

Goldberg is right, as usual. Go read the whole article.

Brilliant stuff from Jonah Goldberg today on the increasing desire of government to regulate the “little stuff”. He begins by listing everything the New York City Council banned or tried to ban in 2006. It’s a long list. And he notes some other bans around the country.

Then he pulls out a penetrating comment from deToqueville:

“It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones. …”

“Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will.”

Then Goldberg brings it home with stunning clarity (emphasis mine):

This is a typically penetrating insight, and one with new relevance these days. This country seems to have inverted de Tocqueville’s hierarchy. On countless fronts, the natural pastures of daily liberty have become circumscribed by dull-witted but well-meaning bureaucrats slapping down the paving stones of good intentions on the road to hell.

The rule of thumb for a free society should be that it infringes liberties rarely, but when it does so it is for important reasons. Today, that thumb has been cast down, Caesar-like, pointing in the opposite direction. We have democratized the small assaults on freedom so that everyone must endure them, while we caterwaul about the tyranny of any real inconvenience that might fall “disproportionately” on the few. We ban using trans fats for millions but flinch at the idea that some kid might have to endure the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence in school if it conflicts with his conscience. Everyone must surrender his shoes, his regular-sized toothpaste and shampoo at the airport, but we man the barricades to protect a few young Muslim men from being inconvenienced for an extra five minutes at the airport.

Free speech is most restricted where it is most important — in political contests near Election Day — while it is maximized to an absurd level at the fringes of culture and decency. Banning “hate speech” from everybody’s lips is a progressive priority, but electronic eavesdropping on a few terrorists is an impermissible leap down the slippery slope to the police state.

Goldberg is right, as usual. Go read the whole article.

Brilliant stuff from Jonah Goldberg today on the increasing desire of government to regulate the “little stuff”. He begins by listing everything the New York City Council banned or tried to ban in 2006. It’s a long list. And he notes some other bans around the country.

Then he pulls out a penetrating comment from deToqueville:

“It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones. …”

“Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will.”

Then Goldberg brings it home with stunning clarity (emphasis mine):

This is a typically penetrating insight, and one with new relevance these days. This country seems to have inverted de Tocqueville’s hierarchy. On countless fronts, the natural pastures of daily liberty have become circumscribed by dull-witted but well-meaning bureaucrats slapping down the paving stones of good intentions on the road to hell.

The rule of thumb for a free society should be that it infringes liberties rarely, but when it does so it is for important reasons. Today, that thumb has been cast down, Caesar-like, pointing in the opposite direction. We have democratized the small assaults on freedom so that everyone must endure them, while we caterwaul about the tyranny of any real inconvenience that might fall “disproportionately” on the few. We ban using trans fats for millions but flinch at the idea that some kid might have to endure the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence in school if it conflicts with his conscience. Everyone must surrender his shoes, his regular-sized toothpaste and shampoo at the airport, but we man the barricades to protect a few young Muslim men from being inconvenienced for an extra five minutes at the airport.

Free speech is most restricted where it is most important — in political contests near Election Day — while it is maximized to an absurd level at the fringes of culture and decency. Banning “hate speech” from everybody’s lips is a progressive priority, but electronic eavesdropping on a few terrorists is an impermissible leap down the slippery slope to the police state.

Goldberg is right, as usual. Go read the whole article.

My mother-in-law asked the other day what I thought about this recent news story. In brief: Newly elected to the House of Representatives, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison has declared that when he is sworn in on January 4th, he will take the oath of office with his hand on a Koran instead of a Bible. Ellison is the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.

There have been varying reactions to Ellison’s decision. The loudest has been Dennis Prager on townhall.com, who declares that Ellison “…should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.” A little more:

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.

Yesterday I was forwarded an email from the American Family Association that quoted the Prager column and then asked all the readers to

1. Send an email asking your U.S. Representative and Senators to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators.

2. Forward this email to your friends and family today!

So what is my reaction to all this?

Let’s deal with the easy one first. The AFA’s suggestion is clearly ridiculous. Any law passed by Congress requiring the oath to be taken on a Bible would be summarily rejected by the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional establishment of religion, and rightly so. Let’s just reverse the situation for a moment. Suppose a congressional majority of Muslims arose. Would I think it were then OK for them to mandate that all oaths be taken with a hand on the Koran? Of course not. Hence our protection of religious freedoms in the Constitution.

So then to the next question: what opinion do I have about Mr. Ellison’s intention? Let’s back up and look at the history of oath-taking in the USA. I’m sure I could go back further, but it’s easy to note that George Washington took the presidential oath of office on a Bible. Each President since then has taken the oath in similar fashion. The Bible is today used for oaths in a multitude of other circumstances, local and state offices, courtrooms.

In the initial case, President Washington used the Bible because he viewed it as a sacred book, and placing his hand on the Bible further solemnized the oath. Given the United States’ Christian heritage, this understandably became a tradition that continues to this day. My fear, though, is that somewhere through the years the solemnity imbued by the sacred text has faded into a tradition that carries little of its original weight. Let’s be certain of this: I’m all for politicians keeping their word. Too many these days seem to lose their care for ethics and the truth once they reach Washington; if any action can reinforce to them the need to keep their oath, so much the better. But it seems to me that if the Bible is being used simply as a traditional prop by those who don’t reverence it, it is more dishonoring than honoring to the Book. As one who believes the Bible to be the Word of God, that bothers me.

So where does that leave us? I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really care. I want Rep. Ellison and each of his fellow congressmen to honor the oaths that they take. If Rep. Ellison believes that the Koran will further solemnize his oath, I don’t have a problem with it. If a Christian congressman wants to use the Bible to solemnize his oath, he should use it. Personally, I’d prefer that if a person doesn’t respect or revere the Bible, they not use it at all. Let’s not turn the Holy Book into a prop.

Dr. John Stackhouse of Regent College in Vancouver, BC, is in Cedar Rapids this weekend speaking. He’ll be at Coe College tonight, First Lutheran Church tomorrow night, and then at Noelridge and First Lutheran on Sunday morning. (Visit recminusa.org for more details.)

I got to meet him at lunch today. I was invited to a regular lunch meeting that my pastor has with some musician-types each Thursday, and Dr. Stackhouse was invited to join us all for lunch. He is a fascinating man; seeming to be equally conversant in music, politics, religion, and philosophy, he bantered with the group all the while engaging us in some serious thought.

At one point the discussion turned to politics, and one of the regulars was lamenting that so many people have started to view politics as single-issues; they’ll make their voting decision based strictly on a candidate’s view on, say, abortion, or gay rights. It’s frustrating to those of us who think there are multiple issues that are important. Dr. Stackhouse agreed that it is very difficult; in reality there may be 30 or 40 issues that a thinking person could be versed on, and vote around. What he suggested, though, was that pastors and other leaders should encourage their people to think around a rather short list, perhaps five or six issues that as Christians we should care about.

He only listed two for us:

• How will this issue affect the poor?
• How will this issue affect our ability to freely share the gospel?

He suggested that there might be just a few more. What do you think? Is this a reasonable framework around which to decide how votes will be cast? What items would you add to the list?

Dr. John Stackhouse of Regent College in Vancouver, BC, is in Cedar Rapids this weekend speaking. He’ll be at Coe College tonight, First Lutheran Church tomorrow night, and then at Noelridge and First Lutheran on Sunday morning. (Visit recminusa.org for more details.)

I got to meet him at lunch today. I was invited to a regular lunch meeting that my pastor has with some musician-types each Thursday, and Dr. Stackhouse was invited to join us all for lunch. He is a fascinating man; seeming to be equally conversant in music, politics, religion, and philosophy, he bantered with the group all the while engaging us in some serious thought.

At one point the discussion turned to politics, and one of the regulars was lamenting that so many people have started to view politics as single-issues; they’ll make their voting decision based strictly on a candidate’s view on, say, abortion, or gay rights. It’s frustrating to those of us who think there are multiple issues that are important. Dr. Stackhouse agreed that it is very difficult; in reality there may be 30 or 40 issues that a thinking person could be versed on, and vote around. What he suggested, though, was that pastors and other leaders should encourage their people to think around a rather short list, perhaps five or six issues that as Christians we should care about.

He only listed two for us:

• How will this issue affect the poor?
• How will this issue affect our ability to freely share the gospel?

He suggested that there might be just a few more. What do you think? Is this a reasonable framework around which to decide how votes will be cast? What items would you add to the list?