Tag Archives: politics

The Eye of a Needle

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Some of the comments made it apparent that some of my points were unclear. I’ve made some minor changes and a few additions in the hopes of making myself clear. – Funky]

I was wandering through the Book of Acts last night and a few things jumped out at me. I’ll be posting about them over the next few days or weeks. For now, I’ll limit myself to what appears to be an indictment of how most Christians live their lives, i.e. richly.

"And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." – Acts 2:44-47

"Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common." – Acts 4:32

This certainly seems to advocate a communal lifestyle for Christians. Tying this into the Red vs. Blue craziness, I find it interesting that Red Christians get most of the moral teachings right but disregard the economic teachings, and the Blue Christians get the economic teachings while mostly ignoring the moral teachings. As a Purple Christian, I find this to be very frustrating.

I’ve heard more lame defenses of free market capitalism from Red Christians than I care to remember. I don’t buy it. Tell me why redistribution of wealth is wrong. Tell me why market forces are reason enough to pay off-shore workers peanuts. Tell me why consumerism isn’t unChristian. Tell me why there aren’t more fiery sermons against commercial Christmas.

I’m not just talking about all the sales and products being pushed, but the very giving of "wants" as gifts. Why isn’t more emphasis put of making charitable donations? volunteering time? giving heartfelt, homemade gifts? Being poor shouldn’t be the only reason your kids don’t get a new video game system. We all, young and old, have too many toys. How do they profit our souls? I’m trying very hard to make do with what I have and stop drooling over technological goodies I don’t have.

Recently, I have found myself increasingly convicted by this. I humbly ask of my readers – shouldn’t we all be? Please don’t think I’m giving moral imperatives lower priority. I’m just refusing to ignore social justice. I refuse to believe government doesn’t have a part to play in Christian charity. A lot of conservatives seem to disagree with me. Convince me.

On a related note, I’d like to point out the following:

WORD-FM (101.5) [Pittsburgh area] talk host Marty Minto will do several live broadcasts from area rescue missions next week with the goal of raising more than $30,000 for feeding the hungry and homeless on Thanksgiving. The programs will air from New Castle City Rescue Mission on Monday, Washington City Rescue Mission on Tuesday and Light of Life Rescue Mission on Wednesday.

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Alternatives to the GOP?

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Some commentators on Funky’s
blog have complained that pro-life Christians have found themselves
voting Republican
whether they wanted to or not. Mr. Bush’s actions in Iraq had me
wondering if we
could somehow find a pro-life Nader, but unlike Nader, who would have
the Democrats
become more liberal (at least with economic issues), perhaps our
pro-life Nader
would help pull the Republicans to a more moderate set of social and
international
policies–i.e., maybe tug them to the left. Or, this pro-life Nader
could rally
pro-life Democrats and even encourage that party to get a little more
open-minded
about its abortion plank.

Well, with that in mind, check out this article in Wired.com about the
still-undetermined
role of blogs
in elections, and the Washington
Post article on how Evangelicals often campaigned for Bush
independently of
the GOP or Bush’s own staff. The latter is comforting, since it means
that many
Christians are not in lock-step with the Republicans so much as they
thought that
the Republican candidate was a better pick. They worked independently,
behold, here
is an
NY Times article about how the Dems can woo the church-goers yet
again. Of particular
note are the candid comments from Fr. Richard Neuhaus, editor of the
influential
journal First Things
(and a personal
favorite of this contributor!).

So with this in mind, we should draw some hope that pro-life Christians
may use
their leverage to get a better candidate. The trick is now to work on
finding and
supporting some good ones.

Wherefore the Divisions?

9 Replies

No sooner did Kerry call it quits than everyone was talking about the
divisions
of the nation, pointing to the red-and-blue maps that CNN, FOX, etc.
posted for
our viewing pleasure. Many people were demanding that Bush heal those
divisions.
Before we can even address that, though, where are these divisions and
are they
really that bad? I seem to recall some nasty divisions during Clinton’s
presidency,
for instance. Never mind that states were often won by narrow margins,
and that
many of the red states reelected Democratic
governors, for instance. Moreover, Massachusetts has a Republican
governor,
for crying out loud!

And I call our attention to an article previously posted on
this blog, regarding
Ohio voters. They were hardly the ravening anti-gay, anti-Arab
bigots that the
New York Times op-ed page would have us think they were. They just
weren’t that
hot about Kerry–the relative indifferent strikes me as the very
opposite of the
divisions we are all supposed to fear.

I think there are divisions but they are being exaggerated and distorted
by Hollywood
(thanks Drudge, for this one) and some of the more
hysterical NY Times op-eds (though this
one by David Brooks is quite good–it doesn’t hurt that I agree with
him on
most of his points). It has been just over a week since a complicated,
hard-fought
election ended: let’s take a deep, cleansing breath, and look at what
really is
dividing America, and learn about what those things are before we set
about fixing
them.

Divided We Fall

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Here are some interesting perspectives on the red vs. blue mentality that’s causing so much unrest these days.

Church of the Masses: I’M NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT….

"People who go around calling Americans who disagree with them stupid, neo-Nazi, moronic, freedom squelching, bigotted and intolerant theocrats, must then wait a mandatory fifteen minutes before bemoaning the "frightening," divisive, uncivil rhetoric that is splitting us all into two Americas…. I mean, just to keep all of our heads from spinning around too fast."

GetReligion: Take that! No, you take that! (cue: slap)

"If the Dems could manage to stop insulting people of faith, and could take a few steps towards the center on moral issues like abortion, marriage, the Pledge, embryonic stem cells, Israel, they might be able to claim to be the party that is seeking balance in a pluralistic society, leaving the Republicans to appear to be the party of the extremes. But such compromises would infuriate the hard left, and would probably take more moral courage than the Democrats are able to muster."

Scientists scan brains for political clues

Applying some of the same brain-scan technology used to understand Alzheimer’s and autism, scientists are trying to learn what makes a Republican’s mind different from a Democrat’s.

Theomorph: Start Thinking

Maybe I’m an idealist, but I am tired of living in a country where people refuse to think, where people refuse to read books, where people prefer to do what they’re told instead of doing what they think. We’re a country of externalized, demonstrative, paranoid imitators. We can’t step away from the TV, we can’t turn off the music, we can’t crack a book, we can’t sit down, face a blank sheet of paper with pen in hand, and dare to scribble a few of our own thoughts. We are a nation that lives between minds instead of in them, and I am sick of it.