Two Images that Floored Me

This photo is from a CNN slideshow of pictures from the celebrations in Egypt after the recent revolution there. The caption reads, "A Muslim holding the Koran (top L) and a Coptic Christian holding a cross are carried through opposition supporters in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 6, 2011. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez"

This photo is from the Little Rock school integration protests. It strikes me how 50 years later we are still using communism and socialism to make absurd guilt-by-association arguments. (Source: Wikimedia)

Questions about Libya

I have been struggling over the last few week about what, if anything, to write here about Libya. I have so many questions about Obama's decision to act. Fortunately I'm not alone. Here are two guys whose struggles to understand the president's action I share, from opposite sides of the political spectrum. The first is John Boehner, in a letter sent to Obama on Wednesday. The second is Jon Stewart:


The Daily Show: America at Not-War – Obama's Communication Gap

Speaking of two guys who almost never agree coming together on an issue, I had plans to write a short post about the fear-mongering reporting which has surrounded Japan's nuclear crisis and how it should not deter us from pursuing a clean, safe energy future through nuclear power—but my buddy Harrison beat me to it. Check it out.

Dear Rep. King

Let's set aside the fact that radical Muslims are a vanishingly small percentage (much less than 1%) of the global and American Muslim community. The fact that Muslim Americans are the number one source of tips exposing domestic terror plots in the US. The fact that more domestic terror plots have been carried out by non-Muslims than Muslims in the last two years. The fact that you, Rep. King, have made ludicrous statements supporting the NRA and claiming that 80% of American Mosques are lead by radical leaders. The fact that your hearings will probably only hurt the crucial relationship between the Muslim American community and law enforcement. The fact that as Muslim American US Representative Bob Ellison explained in his tearful testimony, many Muslims died in the attacks of 9/11/2001 while trying to save lives, not end them. Let's set these facts aside because they are not the issue.

The issue, Rep. King, is your blatant disregard for the spirit of the founding documents you have sworn to uphold. The very idea of the US Congress holding hearings to investigate a community of Americans simply because they are members of one of the world's largest religions is patently un-American. It is furthermore a betrayal of Conservatism, which holds fervently that the right of the people to worship freely shall not be infringed upon by the state. 

As an American, as a Conservative, as a person of faith, I am deeply angered by your actions.

Sources: WaPo 1 | WaPo 2 | WaPo 3 | Daily Beast | MuslimsForPeace

The God of Japan

For a good chunk of my life, probably four years or so, I prayed weekly with a group of Christian friends to know God's character and have it "impressed upon" my life. I'm still not sure I know what this means, but I do know it doesn't go away. A couple weeks ago it popped up in a video promotion for a controversial pastor's new book using words that are perhaps easier to understand: "What is God like?"

Then the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history hit Japan. On Monday I heard on the radio that 2,000 bodies had washed up on the shores of the Miyagi prefecture. What is God like? Does he intentionally slaughter thousands? Does he stand by helplessly, wishing he could act? Both seem unbearable. The phrase "act of God" is relentless in its complexity.

Lately I've been wondering if rejection or acceptance of the existence of a loving god all boils down to your approach to the problem of suffering: either you cannot bear the idea of a horrific earthquake in Japan (or Haiti, or China) with God, or you cannot bear it without him.

And though I don't always hold up in a crucible like this I believe I can say I still can't bear it without him, even if I must accept hidden purposes behind violent, senseless events. Even so, in earnest honesty I admit that this acceptance cripples my courage. It is overwhelmingly difficult to trust a God whose plan for your life and the life of everyone you know may be terrible destruction. (My sister Anna calls this kind of bravery, the courage to trust a God who may cause you to suffer, art.) This is one of the many things, laziness and selfishness among them, that keeps me on a path of striving to imitate Christ while simultaneously avoiding knowing him or trusting him or discovering "the plans he has for me." Because despite all I have to say about him, and especially during weeks like these... I'm not sure I know what God is like.

Thoughts on the Upcoming Conversation about Heaven and Hell

One day not so long ago we woke up in a world where books have movie trailers. Last weekend this one popped up for Rob Bell's upcoming book, Love Wins:


LOVE WINS

I have been mulling it over since. Here are some thoughts I've had:

1. I cannot wait to have the conversation this book will inevitably provoke. I strongly desire to hear what the folks I love and the folks I respect have to say about heaven and hell and their implications for the Christian faith and the character of God. Bell's "question behind the question" is a profound one. What is God like? Is what we believe really "good news?"

2. I hope this conversation, though not new by any means, will go beyond the typical lines of free will and predestination my religious tradition is so apt to resort to. I don't really want to have that conversation... again.

3. I hope in focusing on the afterlife for a season we will not forget importance of the life we're living now, and the deep implications our faith has for it. The religious tradition I'm being welcomed into here in DC is much more focused on the present life and its ongoing, arduous redemption than the tradition of my upbringing. I want to keep exploring this.

4. I cannot believe how many folks think they can judge a man and his book before one single person has had a chance to read it. I'm not Bell's biggest fan, but good grief, the book won't hit the shelves for another month and already people are up in arms, dismissing it as "false doctrine." For shame, John Piper.

Update 3/5/11:
You should check out this Christianity Today article on hell, Universalism, Annihilationism, and Rob Bell's book (by someone who has read it). It's fantastic.

Obama Checks Out

I live in a town knee-deep in bull right now. Some folks say it's always this way. To me this month seems exceptional.

Two weeks ago President Obama delivered his 2011 budget proposal and in doing so abdicated leadership on what will become the defining national issue of the next ten years, barring an unforeseen military conflict. Since ballooning the federal deficit to levels not seen since the 1940s with a stimulus package chock-full of money for his campaign-promised pet projects passed off as emergency spending, Obama has begun preaching the need for fiscal responsibility, most recently in his State of the Union address. I have remained cautiously optimistic listening to these pronouncements, hoping that one of the most level-headed, high-profile politicians I've ever encountered would put our money where his mouth is.

Instead, the administration delivered disingenuous pile of modest proposals that do nearly nothing to address the spending giants that will one day soon eat our lunch: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and defense. Obama's proposals stick to the same-old tiny area of the budget which is apparently the only refuge of politicians who wish to appear fiscally responsible without the character necessary to risk their seats: non-defense discretionary spending. He hopes to cut funding for energy assistance for the poor, community service grants, the EPA, and Pell grants. He suggests freezing domestic discretionary spending and federal civilian employee salaries. The lion's share of the savings he proposes won't take effect until 2016, when he is conveniently assured not to be president. Calling this a hill of beans is an overstatement. It appears Obama took one look at the difficult recommendations of his own bipartisan commission on budget reform and then threw them in the trash. One look is generous.

This month could have been and should have been a defining moment for the Obama Presidency. The last three years, more than any time in our nation's history, we have seen the importance of the United States economy to the stability of the global economy. The US economy cannot function without properly functioning government, and our government is headed for financial ruin. This could have been the time when President Obama chose to put aside party politics and provide the leadership on this issue we desperately lack. With noble indifference to the consequences for his political future, he could have laid forth what this country needs: a redefinition of entitlement. A brave, bold, new approach to the social contract between Americans and their government, with an eye towards sustainability above all.

But Obama checked out, and we are now left to hope for the Republican budget proposal coming in the Spring. It's not looking good. Recently House Republicans have offered some cost-cutting ideas of their own, which amount to a handful of cultural hot potatoes which are worth much more in Republican base political capital than they are in actual dollars. House Republicans passed a bill last week cutting funding for PBS, Planned Parenthood, health-care reform, the ability of the EPA to regulate global warming, network neutrality, the SEC... all of it unlikely to make it into law and none of it worth talking about in the grand scheme of balancing the budget. These actions don't give me a lot of hope for the coming months.

I suppose I should mention it is possible the administration chose not to make a big, bold move with this budget anticipating that whatever they lead with would instantly be beaten to shreds by the GOP. Their strategy could be to lead with something modest and then put Congress on the line for fighting the war and coming up with a bipartisan solution—something like the tactics used in the beginning of the health care reform debate. If this is their thinking, I find the administration's belief that it is completely incapable of leading a bipartisan effort just as disheartening. Especially after Obama has spoken so eloquently of his desire and our ability to accomplish such things.

From beyond the Beltway though we can hear voices claiming that change is possible, that a bipartisan effort for honest, authentic, sustainable, effective, workable reform is still within our grasp. Here is a quote from Indiana governor Mitch Daniels in his recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, speaking about the dire need for bipartisan fiscal reform:

Here I wish to be very plainspoken: It is up to us to show, specifically, the best way back to greatness, and to argue for it with all the passion of our patriotism. But, should the best way be blocked, while the enemy draws nearer, then someone will need to find the second best way. Or the third, because the nation's survival requires it.

Purity in martyrdom is for suicide bombers. King Pyrrhus is remembered, but his nation disappeared. Winston Churchill set aside his lifetime loathing of Communism in order to fight World War II. Challenged as a hypocrite, he said that when the safety of Britain was at stake, his "conscience became a good girl." We are at such a moment. I for one have no interest in standing in the wreckage of our Republic saying "I told you so" or "You should've done it my way."

We must be the vanguard of recovery, but we cannot do it alone. We have learned in Indiana, big change requires big majorities. We will need people who never tune in to Rush or Glenn or Laura or Sean. 

I hope someone is listening. It appears this town is not.

Sources: WaPo 1 | WaPo 2 | NYT 1 | NYT 2 | NYT 3 | The Atlantic | ABC News | FactCheck.org 1 | FactCheck.org 2 
Image: timtom.ch