What now?

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Well, the election is over and we have a new president-elect: Barack Obama.

As a conservative, I did everything in my power and within my sphere of influence to fight against his presidency and for McCain’s victory. My focus, especially, in the final weeks, was very narrow and concentrated on the person and character of Obama.

But that person is now elected to office.

So what will this conservative Christian do now?

I will concentrate on ideas. I really don’t want to become a bitter contrarian who only criticizes, analyzes, and tears apart every word, action, and motive of the guy I didn’t support. He’s president now (technically, not until January 20th, but you know what I mean). In every way that does not contradict my conscience, I will endeavor to respect and support the President.

However, I will continue to focus on trying to persuade, broadcast, and propagate both conservative and Christian ideas. I personally believe there is a great deal of overlap between the two and I hope to expound upon the links between conservative thought and Christian thought. Even though I don’t have it all thought out, my gut leads me to think that conservative thought is actually a natural extension of Christian thought. I would very much like to explore that theory.

As such, my primary audience is other Christians with whom I do not agree. I’m really interested in how our Christian beliefs get translated into political beliefs and actions and why they are so often on divergent paths. I hope to trace those paths and pinpoint the area(s) of divergence and camp out at those very spots.

My hope is that by concentrating on that area, we can discover more deeply what the truth is. In areas where I feel I am correct, I hope to be able to persuade and clearly articulate my views and bring others to those ideas as well. In the places where I am incorrect, I want to be as open and honest and receptive to change and growth as I can be. Just as I am painfully aware of how difficult it is for me to acknowledge my faults and change my thinking, I am aware of that tendency in others as well. There is no illusion here of a wholesale migration of “liberal Christians” to the conservative Christian viewpoint. Neither should there be an illusion of my swift and painless movement to more liberal ideas.

But, I do believe that this is a worthy discussion to have. I do believe that there is hope for greater unity among Christians in all areas of life, including political. That is my particular focus. This unity is not achieved through blind adherence to ideas. It’s achieved through deliberation, discussion, debate, and dialogue. I also believe that personal and world events will contribute their fair share of persuasion to the discussion.

In the end, my vision is for a body of Christ that is in much more agreement on a much wider and deeper scale than what we currently see. That, contrary to what our culture may say, is a good thing. When the Church is in greater agreement, we are then in a much better place to make a positive impact on our culture at large. That is really what this is all about. I’m not out just to prove that "I’m right and you’re wrong." I’m out to bring about greater unity, not through avoiding conflict, but through embracing it as the path to a hard-fought unity based on a firm foundation of truth discovered and articulated through our sweat and blood.

Please, whether you agree with me or not, join me on this mission. I’d love your company.
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Links and Original Thoughts

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I know I've again been posting a lot of links to other sites and videos and such. With the frenetic pace of the election at this late hour, it seems like there's so much going on that it's hard to discuss.

After the election, I will most definitely be posting more original thoughts. In fact, I've been thinking about talking about the post-election strategy and work that needs to be done. That is something that is occupying more and more of my mind these days.

Stay tuned!
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An Extensive Argument Against Obama

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This is a pretty big article with lots of video footage. They are up front in that they say that they are coming from the conservative point of view, which I thought was good of them to do. They then go through and list several areas and give reasons for doubt about Obama and have lots of video to go with it. Pretty effective, I thought (but I would, wouldn't I? :-))

Click here <--to go to the article
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Debating Politics with Christians

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As I mentioned earlier, I have been engaged in conversations about politics with others who hold a different perspective than I do. Most (if not all) of those people were also Christians. I must say that through it all, I have been very impressed. In the back and forth, a very unique thing has bubbled up to the surface – Christian charity to one another. I have said some ignorant things, made assumptions about others, put them into pigeon holes, etc. Others have said things that I strongly disagree with. In the midst of all of that, though, I have had the pleasure to be witness to encouragement, building up, gentle rebukes (much less harsh than deserved), and an underlying unity that belies the vigorous debate at the political level. I have seen an amazing compassion expressed, love for one another, God, and our neighbor, and an incredible concern for others. I have seen an openness and willingness to struggle and strain toward a greater understanding of the truth.

I think that we all bring God’s spirit into the discussion that helps to infuse the conversation with grace, graciousness, and mercy. It has been an honor and a privilege to do so and I hope to continue to do so. It has been a witness to me and an encouragement to me.

Sometimes, I’m afraid that our political differences will become the most important thing and there will be no fellowship after the debate. However, I have seen a much deeper and stronger force beneath the debate – Christ Himself coming through. I am greatly heartened by that.

Of course, I still feel that I am absolutely correct on every single issue (tongue firmly in check)! :-) Seriously, I do still feel strongly about my opinions and I think it’s natural to some extent for people to think that the opinions they hold are the correct ones. From that, I will, of course, want to continue to debate and try to convince people to be come to what I believe are the right ideas on things. However, I pray that I will also be open and willing to honestly examine areas where other people also challenge me. And I will do my best to do so in a gracious and generous manner, not being judgmental or condescending.

I must confess that an honest gut-level assessment of how I generally feel about others who don’t agree with me is that they are either deceived or just missing some facts. To me, my opinions and beliefs are very consistent, make sense, and seem to agree with biblical principals. So, my first reaction when others don’t agree is to be astonished – “How can they possibly think that?” I’m beginning to see how judgmental and condescending that can be.

But I struggle as well. Being firmly convinced that 1) there is an absolute truth and 2) that truth can be applied to every area of life (including politics), it’s very difficult to simply be content with others just having a different perspective and let that be. My instinct is to want to convince them that I am right. In our post-modern culture where everyone has their own truth, it’s especially hazardous to work under these assumptions. But I am becoming more aware of these assumptions and wrestling with how to deal with them. I am definitely still on a journey with all of this and I beg your patience as I struggle with how to hold in one hand my strong opinions that I believe are right, with a respect and openness to what others say in the other hand. I’m pretty sure that in my humanness, I will drop one or the other of these many times to come. If I focus too strongly on banging away on getting my point made, I may fall into the trap of being judgmental, harsh, condescending, etc. If I focus too strongly on being respectful and listening to others, I may fail to challenge or make any sort of difference. I don’t want either one of those. I DO want to make a difference and challenge others. But I also want to do it in a gracious, open way, knowing that for every finger pointed outward, there are four fingers pointed at myself.

Given this context and feeling a stronger trust in God’s Spirit of unity among believers, I say, “Let the debate commence!”
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My Attempt to Get into the Mind of the Liberal Christian

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I must give a disclaimer up front: The following post is an honest attempt to analyze why my beliefs are different than others. I've tried not to be explosive, but the topic itself may end up stirring up very strong reactions. I welcome your comments and e-mails on this. Please point out where I've made errors. I'm honestly just trying to understand.

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I've had a really interesting experience these last few weeks.

As I've become more active and outspoken in my political stances, I've run into and had several conversations with people who hold a different opinion than me on politics. The interesting thing is, is that most of those people were also committed Christians. Some I know personally, some I do not know personally. But I'm pretty sure that most of them are sincere, committed Christians who love the Lord and really want to live a good life.

On the surface, you might think that our opinions of politics would be similar. Politics touches on many things moral, so wouldn't you expect that people of the same faith would also hold similar stances politically? And yet, in debating politics with other Christians, I'm finding some of us at totally different ends of the spectrum and very passionate about our stances. Why is that?

As I mentioned earlier, I don't believe that politics is morally neutral. It's not like Christians who disagree on the color of lenoleum tile or something. To my way of thinking, there must be something deeper going on that's different. We're seeing the same news stories, the same debates, the same events and yet coming to completely different conclusions. It's like we have different colored glasses that we're looking through and everything we see is through those glasses. And of course, I believe that my viewpoint is the correct way to see things and they believe there's is correct also.

What is that lense that we're looking through? What kind of assumptions, presuppositions, and foundational beliefs do we hold that are different that cause us to lean one way or another?

It seems to me that until we can see that there are radical differences, even among the body of Christ, on these foundational issues, we will continue to see the increasing divide in our country that we are witnessing. And arguing the issues doesn't seem to do anything to bridge that divide.

I submit to you that one group of people are falling prey to some very unbiblical lies and those lies are informing their political beliefs and decisions.

One such lie is liberalism.

I'm not an expert, but let me see if I can trace this out. From what I've read, liberalism began back in the nineteenth century. It was then that the influences of humanism in the form of the Enlightenment and rationalistic thinking really began to influence the church.

Francis Schaeffer says this in How Should We Then Live?: "As the Renaissance had tried to synthesize Aristotle and Christianity and then Plato and Christianity these men [theologians] were attempting to synthesize the rationalism of the Enlightenment and Christianity. This attempt has often been called religious liberalism. The rationalistic theological liberalism of the nineteeth century was embarrassed by and denied the supernatural."

R.C. Sproul Jr, in Dollar Signs of the Times picks up the theme. He says that "nineteeth-century liberalism provoked a crisis by opting for materialism. If, as the liberals supposed, there was no historical resurrection, no virgin birth, no atoning death, no miracles, then what was the abiding significance of Christianity in a modern world? What was the church's mission?" He goes on to describe two options for the liberal church. One was the total rejection of Christianity altogether. Or, "the liberal church's second option was to focus attention on the relevant, abiding virture of Christianity - it's ethical system. After all, the church was a powerful human institution in a position to influence millions of people in the area of social concern....What emerged was a social gospel reducing Christianity to a concern for man's present suffering in this space/time world. Now the agenda was to carry out Jesus' mandate of feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless and clothes to the naked, and caring for the prisoner, the widow, the orphan, and all who were poor and oppressed. Christianity was now seen as an ethical force with a social action agenda."

I'm not saying that liberal Christians today would deny the supernatural or miracles. However, I believe that they have been influenced by the thinking that produced an over-emphasis on a social agenda.

I'm not exactly sure how this works it's way in, but I believe that another outgrowth of humanism in the church is the idea that man, not God, is the ultimate answer to problems. Somehow, government became a substitute for the Church in implementing this social agenda. I'm sure there's dynamics here I'm not aware of, but what I'm now seeing are liberal Christians with a strong emphasis on social concerns believing that the government is ultimately the source and vehicle to solve these problems.

Naturally then, which party and which system of thought would these liberal Christians believe to be the best? The party that has the most aggressive programs to fight the "war on poverty", the party that purports to look out for the little guy: the Democrat Party.

And what about conservatives and Republicans? With the class warfare line of thinking constantly touted, Republicans and conservatives are seen as people who really do hate the poor, the down-trodden and just want to give tax breaks to the rich. They just want to pollute the Earth, surpress the poor, discriminate. They are the ultimate enemies of the compassionate liberals and their social agenda.

But it's all predicated on very unbiblical thinking. The tricky thing is that this thinking is perpetuated over generations so that those today are merely influenced vaguely by those ideas without the ideas ever really being expressed out in the open. I don't doubt that many sincere, ardent liberal Christians would of course give ascent to miracles, the supernatural, etc. They would undoubtedly say that humanism in its purest form is wrong and unbiblical. But the very beliefs of humanism and materialism is what has influenced the modern liberal thinking. It's just that these things are buried too deeply to be noticed and all that is left is a compassion for the poor and social justice.

To me, conservatism is a return to the way things ought to be. When you reject materialism, you believe in miracles. When you reject humanism, you believe that God, not man, is the center of the universe. What you have, then, is a belief that God is the ultimate source of all our solutions and that He is able to work miraculously to accomplish that.

How do those beliefs translate into politics? For one, you don't believe the government to be the one responsible for or able to solve our problems. God, through His church, becomes the primary vehicle by which our society's problems are solved. Second, you have a healthy balance of spiritual and material emphasis. Our highest aim is NOT, in fact, to end poverty in the world. Our aim is to reflect God's Kingdom here. That is done through an emphasis on human dignity, freedom, and life. To conservatives, welfare strips man of his dignity, government impositions strips man of his freedoms, and tyranny strips man of his very life. To conservatives, government has a necessary, but limited role to play. And that role is NOT to end poverty or clean up the environment. The government is to provide order and protection to society and then get out of the way to let society proceed to work on solving these problems.

Why are liberals so threatened by conservatives? Because conservatives want to limit and shrink the influence of the ultimate source of salvation for liberals: the government.

Liberalism basically denies God and liberal Christians are influenced by that denial. It follows, then, that liberal Christians, if they are sincere in their faith in God, must seriously and soberly consider their fundamental beliefs and see if there is that denial of God in their pattern of thinking.
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Is there a Difference between Republicans and Democrats?

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I was having a really interesting conversation with some friends and we were discussing politics and all the corruption in politics. It came up that there always seems to be plenty of blame to go around and it's always Republicans blaming the Democrats for everything and the Democrats blaming the Republicans for everything. As often happens, the conversation ends up saying that both parties are bad and isn't it a shame. It got me thinking and it actually strikes me as a form of Fashionable Cynicism. It's so easy to just let go of distinctions and say that everyone is bad and why don't we just form a 3rd party where everything will be hunky-dory?

It seems to me that the more difficult work is taking the time to actually determine if there is, in fact, a qualitative difference between the two parties. I'm not an expert or a historian, but it seems to me that there REALLY IS a qualitative difference. From my layman's perspective, it seems that whenever there is a Republican scandal, the person is always impugned by not only the media and Democrats, but his own party talks tough about it and he/she eventually quits/leaves office, whatever. It also seems to me that whenever there is a Democratic scandal, it's covered up or minimized in the press, and their fellow Democrats "circle the wagons" and defend it and try to shift the blame elsewhere. That person fights to stay in power as long as possible. That seems like a qualitative difference to me.

Another qualitative difference in the parties is some of the issues they stand for. It's more often than not the Democrat party that defends the criminal, defends the terrorist, but pushes for a woman's right to choose to kill her baby. It's the Democrat party that declares the Iraq war a defeat, accuses the military of blatanly killing civilians, threatens to withdraw funding for the troops in the middle of war, wants to talk to our enemies on a presidential level, pushes higher taxes and more spending. These are all issues that stem from a fundamental difference in worldview on what is right and what is wrong.

I know that the Republicans are not perfect. There is a distinct segment of the Republican party, of which McCain is a part, that is "moderate" and, frankly, shares many of the values with the Democratic party. That definitely muddies the waters when trying to look at the two parties.

However, I DO believe that there is a qualitative difference between the two parties. The Republican party is more on the conservative side of the spectrum and the Democrat party is more on the liberal side of the spectrum. The Republican party tends to favor the free market system; the Democrat party tends to favor more government involvement.

Yes, it takes a little bit of work to not just throw up your hands and declare the whole system corrupt. But I think if you do that work, you will find there is a big difference between the parties.

My biggest plea is to not check out and give up. Stay in there and figure out what you believe and figure out what others believe. Stay involved. If you do, you're choice will become clear.
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Is Obama an Existential Threat to the USA?

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I know that may sound kind of alarminst, but I was thinking about this and just had to verbalize the question:

"Is Obama an existential threat to the USA? If Obama becomes President, will that threaten the existence of America?"

Consider the following:
- Attended the church of Jeremiah Wright for 20 some-odd years. Jeremiah Wright, who made famous the quote "God damn America."
- Friends and co-worker with William Ayers. William Ayers is co-founder of Weathermen, a domestic terrorist organization. Obama calles Ayers "respectable," "mainstream," and "just another guy in the neighborhood."
- Accepted more contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than anyone except for Chris Dodd. Accepted these contributions in little over 3 years, whereas Chris Dodd took 20 years to accept more contributions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are arguably part of the main reason for our current economic crisis.
- Former CEOs of Fannie Mae, Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines are advisors to Obama.
- Former member of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a law firm that sued banks to pressure them to give sub-prime loans.
- Member of ACORN, a community organizing group that consistently practices voter fraud and "direct action" activities such as storming board meetings of banks to pressure them to give sub-prime loans.
- Received campaign contributions and participated in questionable financing deal with convicted felon, Tony Rezko.
- Voted to cut off funds to troops.
- Voted 4 times to not allow medical help to infants who survice abortions.
- Endorsed by Hamas.
- Willing to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without pre-conditions, but is unwilling to appear on Fox. (UPDATE: I forgot about the appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show. Thanks Dawn!)

These are just the things that I know of. I'm relatively well informed, but by no means an expert. These are just the things I could think of off the top of my head. I'm guessing there is more out there that I am not aware of.

Obama has demonstrated a willingness to associate himself with people who are clearly enemies of the United States. He demonstrates a threat to America on an economic level, a philosphical level, a military level, a social level, and a cultural level. It seems that in every measure, the man just wants to harm the United States.

Imagine if he gets elected and the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are in charge of congress. With the only opposition from a minority in congress, he will be able to implement much of his radical, left-wing, downright dangerous agenda. That, too me, constitutes an existential threat to America.

A Very Simple Question

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I've been thinking about a very simple question (again)...

When the chips are down, who do you trust?

This country was founded on the principles of religious freedom, private property, a democratic and free society.

And yet...

In times of crisis we turn to the government to "bail" us out. Every time there is a crisis in this country, we now instinctively turn to the government to rescue us. Does a larger, more powerful federal government represent the principles of the founding fathers? I think not.

For the sake of preventing bad things from happening, we sacrifice the principles on which this country was founded. We sacrifice the democratic process and freedoms in society "for the greater good."

Do we believe in our founding principles or not?

If they are such great principles, shouldn't they be depended on in bad times as well as good? Or are they only worth believing on when things are going well? Those principles that this country was founded upon were a reaction to the results of the very things we are now turning to. There was religious persecution, so we wanted freedom of religion. The king was the law of the land, so we wanted a land ruled by ordinary citizens. There were serfdoms and multitudes in servitude, so we wanted a free land. All these things are good.

But now, we are restraining religion more all the time. We are actually contemplating in our current financial situation to hand the responsibility of "securing the economic security" of our country to one man - the treasury secretary. We are taking the power away from the everyday person and giving more of it to the federal government.

Are we so ignorant to think that we will forever be safe from the abuses that are so clearly on display? Do we really think that government will ever shrink from what it's already taken? Do we think that the abject manipulation of every system in this country will not consolidate power to the point of someday being able to re-organize the very structures of this country?

I, for one, do not want to place my trust in the federal government to take care of us to that extent - government led by corrupt individuals is fundamentally untrustworty.

Fashionable Cynicism

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I was in the break room of my workplace the other day and they had the TV on (to CNN, of course) and it was talking about the financial issues that were going on. So, I was standing there watching it for a minute when another co-worker came in. Without provocation, he said something like, "Bah, might as well just vote for Ralph Nader" and then left.

I've had other occasions where I've asked family or friends what they thought about the elections and they have almost invariably gone the way of criticizing both candidates and criticizing the whole process. They bemoan the corruption in the system and write it all off as not worth following.

While I totally understand the frustration with the corruption in the system (see here), these two examples strike me as what I call "Fashionable Cynicism" There is the kind of cynicism where someone is fully aware of the faults and expects the worst. That I can understand.

However, this fashionable cynicism strikes me as fundamentally false. By decrying the whole political landscape and lumping everything together as bad, these people are actually failing to engage with the issues. They are actually choosing to blow it off and just think about something else.

I can understand, believe me. Sometimes it's just too overwhelming to think about all the issues going on in the world. Sometimes it's really scary to think about it. Or you just feel helpless to do anything. Or it's just inane and doesn't make any sense. These, to me, are honest, authentic responses.

But when people stand on the sidelines and criticize the whole process, and yet are too uninformed to even understand what's really going on, that to me is just a cop out. It's their way of just not dealing with it.

But deal with it we must. The consequences of going through life uninformed are too grave. We must do our part to make sure this country remains strong.

If you're just angry with all politicians, do something to make it better! Don't just complain about it. If it's overwhelming to you, start with a small area and become familiar with that and let that lead you into more and more broad areas of knowledge. If you feel helpless to do anything to change things, rebuke that lie! You are not helpless! You can start by becoming informed. You can give money to a cause. You can volunteer. You can talk to friends and family. You can start a blog. :-)

The way I see it, people who are just generally critical of the whole political process are not much different than someone who is just talking in their sleep. I just want to shake them and say, WAKE UP! There's a whole world out there in need of engaged people making a difference and your cynicism isn't helping at all.

Also, once you start to really get informed of the events going on around us, you will begin to see that not everything is just bad. I want to shout out kudos to all the Republicans in the House. They have been fighting valiantly for us and I feel personally grateful to them this day.

If you're out there and you feel a general level of cynicism toward the whole political process, I want to challenge you to take a hard look inside yourself and see if you aren't just avoiding it. Don't avoid it! Do something about it!

The Moral Restraint

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In a previous post, I touched on a theme that I'd like to build upon here.

Earlier, I said that "I do believe that human nature tends to hunger for more and more power without ever being satisfied and those who already posses a great amount of power are especially susceptible to this hunger...human nature being what it is, those in power are constantly trying to find the loophole, go around, change, or just run ramshod over any rules that get in their way. It's a constant struggle between their power and the rules in place.

Given that our human nature is inherently greedy and hungry for power (and that belief is foundational to a conservative and Christian perspective), what do we do? How do we contain this tendency? I think this is the very question that our founding fathers wrestled with.

In order to have some sort of civilized society, we must have structures in place that necessarily puts some people in a position of power over others. How do we contain those powers?

One thing to try and do is to create a system that has as many checks and balances as possible and spread that power around so that no one person has all the power. That's one of the crucial things that was established in this country. However, as can be clearly seen in just the most recent financial crisis, the government tends to take more power when it can - especially during times of crisis. Just look at the Great Depression and the New Deal. Look at the executive powers given to the president during WWII. Look at the consolidation of power on the Supreme Court. Historically, those 9 justices did not have the power they have today.

No, even the best of systems will eventually fall due to the power-hungry, greedy nature of mankind.

So, what do we do? Is all lost?

No.

There was one other critical element that the founding fathers knew about. It was, in fact, the very foundation and life-blood of our democracy. That other critical element was the Moral Restraint. The only way to counter-act the natural tendency within politicians and those in power from currupting the system and claiming more power is to have a counterbalance within themselves to keep them from those actions. It is this Moral Restraint that allows a leader to serve in office for the good of the people and not for his own gain. It is this Moral Restraint that can keep an elected official from taking bribes. It is this Moral Restraint that can keep a judge from declaring from the bench what the law should be, rather than what it is.

This element of Moral Restraint is why the character of the person running for office is so important. In fact, if a person running for office is experienced, has plans, judgment - whatever - but his character is proven to be bad, that person should not be elected to a position of leadership. It's that simple.

Would you trust your money to a currupt banker? Would you trust your children with a depraved babysitter? Would you trust your aging parents to cruel doctors?

Then why in the world do we trust our country to corrupt, power-hungry politicions with no moral restraint?!?

That has GOT to change! We must no longer discount Moral Restraint as an optional characteristic in those we elect to office. It MUST become a priority again.

But how are we going to find leaders that have Moral Restraint when the Moral Restraint in our country is generally falling? We won't.

We must begin by building up Moral Restraint on a local level. Our country must recover its roots of belief in God. Our country must turn back or we are destined to fall. It's that simple.

Big Brother vs. Big Business

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Our society is currently gripped by a financial crisis that many of us (myself included) only vaguely understand. We know it has something to do with the mortgage industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and is somehow affecting the "financial industry" (whatever that is). In the midst of this, we have seen our government step in and bail out some companies by giving them a bunch of money, but not others. Most recently, there is talk of a bailout to the tune of $700,000,000,000 - $1,000,000,000,000. (That's 700 Billion to 1 Trillion dollars). That's a LOT of money! In the midst of all of this has been talk of government "taking over" sectors of our society, "nationalization of our finance industry," etc.

While I feely admit that I'm not a financial expert and just plain cannot comprehend numbers that high, I am reminded of a fundamental question about politics, government, and business. Basically, who has the right to do what? What role should our government play in all of this? How much and what kind of regulation is appropriate? What about the greedy people on Wall Street? Shouldn't they be held accountable?

Basically, we're talking about what kind of society we want and, ultimately, whom do we trust the most? Do we trust the government to deal with these situations? Or do we trust the free market and capitalism to handle it?

I think the answers to these questions forms the basic difference in philosophy between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives, by and large, tend to mistrust government more than big business while liberals, by and large, tend to mistrust big business more than government. In the spirit of believing the best about people, I don't suppose that anyone has an absolute distrust in either one of those. If they did, then conservatives would want to have NO government whatsoever, which is total anarchy. Likewise, I don't believe most liberals would want to have NO independent business whatsoever, which is, I guess something like a pure Communist or Socialist state.

That being said, I do believe that human nature tends to hunger for more and more power without ever being satisfied and those who already posses a great amount of power are especially susceptible to this hunger. We've all read about and seen companies that grow beyond all measure and how, without regulation, that can possibly lead to abuses. I think the old monopolies such as Standard Oil are prime examples of this. On the other end of the spectrum, we've also seen how governments have acquired more and more power over people's lives. Venezuala is a current example of this, while the most dramatic example would be Germany under Hitler's rule or Stalinist Russia.

Now, the question I have is: which is worse? Assuming that there are no restraints at all, which has the potential for greater evil, big business or big government? (And in assuming no restraints, I think we are still in the realm of the possible because human nature being what it is, those in power are constantly trying to find the loophole, go around, change, or just run ramshod over any rules that get in their way. It's a constant struggle between their power and the rules in place.)

I would submit to you that big government has the potential for the greatest evil. Although big business has been known to abuse it's own workers, big government has been known to abuse it's ENTIRE population - even to the point of extermination. That is one of the primary reasons I am a conservative. I mistrust government much, much, much more than I mistrust business or the free market.

And seeing what I'm seeing these days with the financial crisis, I'm not feeling very trusting right now.

Coming Attractions

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I feel like I've been warming up a little bit to this and haven't REALLY said anything substantive yet. This one won't actually say much either. :-) BUT, I want to try to get down some stuff that's been rattling around in my head before it rattles right out.

I haven't filled out the blog's description yet because I haven't totally fleshed it out yet. But here's a few things I do know:

• I am a Christian and a conservative and love politics and current events.
• I want to do more than just talk about stuff, though. I'm really hoping that through vigorous debate and discussion, minds can be moved and people can go into action.
• Up front, I want to say that I am interested in and will be attempting to influence people - I want to make a difference in people's lives.
• In the process, I'm hoping to sharpen and clarify my own views on things as well.
• I'm most interested in the interaction between the Church and the State. Where are the boundaries? What is appropriate? What is not?
• I'm deeply concerned about the direction of this country and it's underlying culture. I feel like I can't just passively watch anymore - I've got to do something. I want to be a part in returning the culture to a place where, as a nation, God is honored.
• I'm totally open to debating the particulars of any given issue, but I'm personally more interested in one or two levels deeper than that -fundamental presuppositions that inform people's views. It's my goal to identify and speak on that level as much as possible.

Well, that's a start at least. Hopefully, this will give me and you some fodder for meaningful discussion.

Politics and Religion

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"So, what are you interested in?"

That's the question that has haunted me for most of my life. When I was younger, I had no idea what interested me. There were so many options, so many things to do that I ended up paralyzed without focus and squandered so much time floundering around from one thing to another. Sometimes, I would just lose interest in everything all together.

As I got older however, my life began to take on a little more focus. I haven't completely found my true life's passion yet by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm beginning to get a sense of an overall direction or theme in my life.

Let me ask you a question: What are the two topics that you should NEVER bring up at, say, a party? That's right: Politics and Religion.

But those are the very things that interest me the most! Now when someone asks me, "So, what are you interested in?", I'm immediately in a different kind of quandary. I no longer have to desperately search for something to say. I know what my answer is now. It's politics and religion. No, my quandary is now to assess the situation, try to read the responsiveness of the person I'm talking to, and decide if it's worth the risk to come out with "politics and religion."

You know what? I don't want to be afraid anymore to say those two words. Why is there such a restriction on that anyway? What, we can't talk about those things because we might have a difference of opinion? Someone's feelings might get hurt? It might start an argument?

We live in such an easily offended, political correct, conformity-driven, don't make waves, fit-in-with-everyone else society that there are two whole big swaths of every person's life that we can't even talk about at all! That's just not right!

NO!

I say these are the very things that we ought to be talking about the most. What other things are so close to peoples' hearts as their religion? Here we are in an election year. What else is in the news so much as politics these days? If these are the things that stir up so much emotion, why do we avoid them? If we avoid talking about these things, our lives are tremendously diminished. Do you want to go through life avoiding everything that has passion? What kind of life is that?

Live life to the full. Talk about what's on your heart. If it makes others feel uncomfortable, be gentle about it, but for God's sake don't just avoid it. These things need to be talked about.

What am I interested in? What keeps me up at night and gets me out of bed in the morning? It's politics and religion.