Last night in Charleston, South Carolina on the day the nation celebrates the Rev. Dr. King, Governor Rick Perry used a question about voting rights to say the Federal government was at “war” with the states.

This was either ignorant or disgusting. (more…)

Being George Washington
Glenn Beck
A Live Blog Review
11/25/2011 2:23 PM

This review is not about Glenn Beck.

Whatever, you think of Glenn Beck; many of the parents of my students listen to him on radio, subscribe to his television network (GBTV), and read his books.

In this new book Being George Washington, from now on BGW, Beck engages in an old classical tradition. He uses historical example to teach an important lesson. Glenn Beck, like Plutarch or Weems, is less interested in the details than in the big picture. (more…)

Let me praise Newt Gingrich.

When nobody else could imagine a Republican House majority, New Gingrich saw it and made it so. If you are a backbench legislator doomed to decades in the minority, Gingrich is just the bomb thrower and innovator you need.

If a student finds history boring, Professor Gingrich will make it exciting. He will gallop across ideas until any dullard can see why old events still matter today. Professor Newt may not always be right, and one can question some of his connections, but nobody will leave class without knowing history counts. (more…)

God has opinions about human affairs, but His opinions are not easy for any human to see.

Abraham Lincoln faced the Civil War, the greatest test the American Republic has endured, but he was not foolish enough to assume the government was on God’s side. In his Second Inaugural Address Lincoln pointed out that both sides asked God’s help and, “The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.”

Why?

“The Almighty has His own purposes.”

Lincoln did not hesitate in judging the institution of slavery: it was immoral. He knew that rebellion and disunion, corrupted by a peculiar connection to slavery, was intolerable, but he also knew that the Union was not guiltless. The Constitution had tolerated slavery and the Union had profited from the unpaid work of slaves forced from them by the lash of the masters.

The factories that churned out the Northern arms were not models of equality or justice.

Saying that God Almighty was not “on the side” of the Union is just American Civics 101. Lincoln taught Americans that we must invoke God’s aid, but do so with humility. We can fight for justice, but with charity toward all. Our cause may be righteous, but we are not.

Lincoln accepted that the City of God and the City of Man never fully overlap. Subjects of King Jesus are always in tension with the demands of being a citizen of the Republic. This is not God’s nation (though it is His country), but this side of Paradise I am a member of the American commonwealth. When the judgment comes and all tribes and nations stand before the Almighty, I will stand with shame and pride before His throne as an American.

Practically speaking, this will matter in my vote for President of the United States. I am confident of the righteousness of the pro-life cause and of the morality of traditional marriage. My cause is just, but those are not the only issues that will be decided in the next great election.

And no party, certainly not the Republican Party, is righteous, because I am in it and I am not righteous. I stand before God imperfect and His judgments, with eternity in mind, are inscrutable. Many a slave owner was just in some area of his life not related to slavery; many a pro-choicer may be more loving than I in many ways not related to abortion.

Otherwise just men end up in unjust causes.

So I must press on with humility to do right as God gives me to see the right. For most of us, the realization that there are righteous causes, such as conservation, but no simple “bad guys” to oppose leads to impotence. Lincoln had no malice and great charity, but ran the largest armed force on the planet to do justice.

He was willing to act with determination, but not with ego. As a result, Lincoln was no tyrant and the bad he did, such as suspending some civil liberties, died with him, but his righteous causes, Union and liberty, lived to inspire other great men and women.

Let’s vote and disagree with this in mind. Our foes are wrong, but they are not Satan’s minions. We are not angels of God, but merely people sullying the flag by our raising it. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in . . . “

Christians love unions and conservatives should as well.

From Poland to West Virginia, unions, organized workers, have checked the power of tyrants and helped working people. (more…)

Whatever the merits of the complaints against Hermann Cain conservatives should not make the mistake of minimizing the harm done by sexual harassment. In a few places, I have read good-hearted folk misunderstanding the entire issue.

They act as if there is no moral issue to sexual harassment at all. You would think the problem was dreamed up by trial lawyers merely to sue innocent companies. Watching even a few “Perry Mason” episodes (to cite a “harmless” example) reminds a person of how safe it was to marginalize female associates and reduce them to a “honey” or “sweetie.” I worked in a plant where female employees, and those of us wishing to be moral, were forced to look at porn pinups hanging in prominent places.

Surely ending this was a good thing?

Not all changes in the culture are bad and one good one is that sexual harassment is more widely viewed as bad. We are all trying to be better people in this area.

Of course, good people at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles long ago understood that the workplace or a ministry was not a place for some kinds of private behavior. At their best, these great people had a higher standard than our own: demanding that talk be noble, good, true, and beautiful.

No Christian ever defended crude and intentionally demeaning language.

Still too often “boys were allowed to be boys” or stereotypes that did not transgress piety were allowed. This did not help “boys” or anybody else. No society can afford to marginalize talented people or put them in a hostile workplace.

People in my generation had and still have to learn this lesson.

It seems so obvious to say, but still it is worth repeating: sexual harassment is bad.

Of course that means that a false accusation is also bad or that trivializing real sexual harassment is equally harmful. However, there is little evidence that such trivialization happens as often as the vice itself or some people fear.
Nor is the fact that some media figures or ideologues have cried “wolf” at innocent men make real wolves any less dangerous. Power mongers will make any cause, no matter how noble, a means to get influence and money.

However, one views “feminism” or however one thinks sexual harassment should be handled, it is wrong. It is not, thank God, and unpardonable sin, but wrong it is. In this area, like many others, doing the wrong thing, repenting, and making amends must be possible. None of us is perfect and I certainly wish to judge with mercy as I hope to be judged when I make mistakes.

By the 1990’s any business leader like Cain knew the rules had changed. Even if you did not agree with all the methods used to bring about positive change, nobody of sense defended sexual harassment as necessary to do business. It isn’t. Cain was not working in Perry Mason’s America, or he would not have been the head of any powerful association.

If he was guilty, then it reflects on his judgment. Depending on the severity of the offense, it might be forgivable, but not of course if he merely denies it. How can one learn through denial?

Again, I am not judging Cain’s innocence or guilt merely pointing out that nobody should defend him by minimizing the harm of what he did. We will never elect a perfect person president. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were great leaders that did bad things by our standards and by the timeless standards of Christianity. A wise voter, however, voted for Washington or Lincoln despite their vices, not because of them. We cannot praise good men by faint damns of their evils.

We don’t do anything for Washington by minimizing the evils of his owning slaves. We don’t justify Lincoln by pretending that some of his abuse of civil liberties in pursuing the War was not bad. Republican voters will have to decide if Cain did what he now denies and how severe this fault is.

We should not pretend that sexual harassment is not wrong or unimportant.

As a Biblical Christian, people worry that this will keep me from changing my mind. Since open-mindedness is often a good thing, they worry about me.
(more…)

Sometimes my friends think I wish to go back to the days when people with a homosexual orientation were in a “closet.”

I am glad those days are over. I have no wish to return to them. (more…)

A common criticism of Evangelicals is that we are dogmatic. Since we do in fact have dogma, this would appear fatal. If you don’t like dogma, you will not like us.

It does not help to point out that non-Evangelicals also have dogma. (more…)

Am I the only full-blooded social conservative to be glad to see an end to “don’t ask, don’t tell?”

The policy seemed designed to encourage deceit and place military men and women in a position to be blackmailed.

If homosexual practice is a vice, then it is incompatible with being an “officer and a gentleman/lady,” but I do not see that we have ever required very genteel behavior from our officers. Surely if we were not going to discharge those soliciting prostitutes abroad, then it was hypocritical to remove those engaged in this particular vice?

I think homosexual behavior is morally wrong. It is dangerous, however, to make every wrong the basis of employment or participation in parts of society. Just as all vices need not be illegal, all vices are not relevant to all jobs.

I also have no background in the military and must be open to the idea that certain vices are particularly onerous in combat zones, but the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was pure Clinton. It was a policy built on lies and lies make rational decision making hard.

Let’s assume contexts exist where serving with a homosexual person is difficult. Surely many in a unit would know or guess the “not telling” person’s orientation? If serving with a practicing homosexual is a problem in some contexts, then isn’t it better to know when those contexts occur than have to guess?

If there are good reasons that make this particular vice incompatible with military service, then I do not understand the historic success of the British navy. Churchill assures his readers that the Royal Navy could not have expelled every person participating in it.

Of course, one potential problem is that the military will now demand all members approve of homosexual behavior. I trust not. Ignoring vice not relevant to service is one thing, but forcing religious people to approve of it is another. That is the place to fight on this issue, I think.

The quest by some in the Republican Party for a savior is unseemly. 

We have a choice between the incumbent president and a long list of good men and women with strong backgrounds. This list includes the governor of one of our largest states, a former governor and business leader, a former senator, a successful business leader, the architect of the Republican congressional majority, and a congressional firebrand. 

Whatever their merits Cain, Perry, Romney, and Santorum all strike me as plausible, mainstream candidates for president. Each have different strengths, but Perry and Romney in particular are strong leaders with the experience generally required in our leaders. (more…)

If you read George Washington’s Farewell Address and take seriously his view that religion likely is necessary to maintain our Republic are you a “Christianist” or a “dominionist?” These devil-words are vague enough to be hard to refute, but seem to mean that one wishes American law to be related to Christian ethics.

My suggestion is you are in the American historic mainstream, but this is obvious enough in Washington and the Founders that critics of Christians in politics need a new foe. Washington is a hard target to make “un-American.”

Francis Schaeffer seems to be the target of choice. He has two important characteristics that make him ideal as a “devil figure.” He wrote a great deal, but wrote as a middlebrow intellectual. As a result, there will be plenty of text in which to find problems while simultaneously allowing a good bit of “sniffing” about “simplifications” he made. (more…)

I am no expert on how to succeed in marriage, but I do know failure. Nobody made me vow to love my wife Hope for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, but I did so swear. When I have failed in love, and I have failed love, at least I had a standard to note my failure. (more…)

Every day the company screwed with its employees.

They told us they would and even laughed about it.

You see I worked (ever so briefly) for a company that made metal fasteners, including screws. The puns cannot all be repeated here, but never varied much. (more…)

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is over and memories can be put away for at least one more year. Most are self-centered and 9/11 forced those of us old enough to pull out of our personal lives and recognize that some things are bigger than we are.

Other people’s pains, other people’s courage, and other people’s pain were more important on 9/11 than anything happening to me directly. The day and week that followed the terror attack featured two responses I remember.

Right after the Towers fell, I walked to school stunned. I had just seen the Towers a few months before 9/11 and had (once again!) chosen not to go to the top. There would be another time only now there would not be.

Sitting by the fountain outside my building were two students discussing the day and as I went in I paused to hear what young adults were saying on this horrific day. It stabbed me to the heart, because they were chattering about boredom.

They were bored on 9/11 with 9/11. A professor had spent their class discussing the events occurring in New York and they resented this waste of their academic time. It looked almost certain that their favorite televisions programs would be preempted by the news.

“Blah, blah, blah, Twin Towers,” they said.

One memory, here is another.

Later that week I talked to an Arab, Christian, American citizen. He looked at me with sorrow and said, “What do you expect? We have been dying for centuries.” A few minutes later he said, “I thought we would be safe here.”

Oddly, the students at the fountain were bored, but mad. They wanted the situation over so they could return to their real lives. It is hard to blame young adults who feared the end of the pleasant times in which they lived. They wanted to “kick some butt,” but they were bored as well.

The older man came from a family that had lived for centuries as second class citizens. He knew the good of Islam as well as the bad. He had much to say of the relative decency of Ottoman rulers, but also knew the costs of living under dominant Islam.
He wanted justice, but his attitude was more a sigh than a scream.

I have thought about these two responses for a decade now and have come to a few conclusions.

First, my older friend knew history. He knew his family history, the times of his people, and the life of his adopted nation. This gave him perspective and so he was not bored, but he also was not hasty. He was ready for centuries of conflict, because he knew that world views do not change with the clock, but with history books.

The young adults wanted something done now. Some deeds could and were done quickly, but the conflict of ideologies was going to outlast their youth. It has outlasted their youth. They are now in their thirties and we still face a war on terror.

Pleasant and moral people can also be very selfish. There is no doubt that the students were fine people in a local sort of way as was my friend, but their concerns were almost entirely related to the people around them.

Like most students, they thought globally, but lived locally. In theory, they knew more of the world than my grandparent’s generation, but what they knew impacted them less. They talked for hours about local relationships.

My grandfather knew fewer facts about Germany, but cared about the tyranny there more than the world traveled, college educated class. In part, this is because “college culture” is the same all over the world and so students never really escape their class.
They know nobody who is sensible, but rejects the values of their class.

Finally, my older friend lived with history while my students only knew it. My friend was far too young to know the Ottomans, but he felt the reality of their dead hand of history. The young adults might have known more about the Turkish Empire (though probably not), but they had no sense of history.

World War I was a series of facts to them, not a dying Tsar or influenza or rat infested muddy trenches scarring a century.
Those who don’t feel history’s lessons are doomed to repeat its pain while prattling about its facts.

This week we enter the second decade in the War on Terror and I resolve to learn from memory.

I will be patient and not demand fast solutions.

I will understand that even my enemies are created in God’s image.

I will fight for justice, but know that this may be a fight of centuries. Meanwhile, even those who oppress me may create beauty.
I will be a patriot, but one who does not win today’s fight by losing the national soul.

Most of all, I will not be bored, because I will live outside my own local concerns and my own tiny mind. Love of neighbor, country, and the world will make me greater than my petty concerns.

God help me.

Sitting in Sunday School as a kid, Mrs. Her Name Is Hard to Recall told me the “fear of the Lord” was reverential awe for God, not being scared.

Slouching in Bible College waiting to be kicked out, Dr. I Will Protect His Identity told me this answer was inadequate and overly soft. He proceeded to expound at some depth on the idea of the fear of the Lord.

Much later as a philosophy graduate student in love with Plato, I was intent on learning exactly what the fear of the Lord is, because the Bible said in Proverbs 1:7 that it was the first step to knowledge or wisdom.

What is the fear of the Lord?

I think my Sunday School teacher was sort of right in the context of teaching children. The fear of the Lord is not being afraid as I was afraid of the Hound of the Baskerville. God is love and not horrible.

Non-Christian friends often think Christians live in constant terror of being smitten, but this is wrong. If God wanted to smite me, I would already be smitten. Instead our fear is motivated by love.

Perfect love casts out the bad source of fear, but longs to better serve the Beloved and fears giving pain.

As I got older my Bible college professor helped me, because he reminded me that it was scary to fall into God’s righteous hands unprepared. In myself, when I am most myself before redemption, I am unfit for the joys of Paradise. The love of God is wrath to me and Beauty will appear horrible.

It is part of the horror that is me that I find love wrathful and beauty terrible.

I am often too distracted to be afraid, but the dialectic, the path to wisdom, reminds me of the terror of being human. I am mortal man doomed to die. Eternity is in my heart but I cannot live in it by nature. My heart’s deepest longings are often what is worst for my own happiness and God wants my happiness.

It is fearful thing to be confused in a reasonable cosmos, selfish in a loving universe, and a dullard in a world of wonder.

An awe for God, His nature, and His works, and even a little bit of self-awareness is terrifying. I am terrified that having tasted a bit of the good things of God that I would miss those good things.

How do I know if I fear God?

I will love my neighbour to show my love of God. This love will make afraid of being cruel to His image in the people around me. I will treat the office workers as if they were Jesus to me.

I will read Scriptures with my whole heart and mind. I will honour Scriptures by asking them my best question and waiting to hear answers. When the truth is revealed to me, my love of Truth will motivate eager obedience to the new insights.

I will love God so much that the thought of missing His goodness, truth, and beauty will fill me with dread. I will pray for His grace and mercy at all times, because love takes nothing for granted.

Christians, and Christian societies, honour dead bodies, because Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, had one.

We do not abuse the dead.

We do not kick corpses.

Traditional Christians do not encourage cremation.

President Obama made the right call to take out bin Laden, the right call to end torture of prisoners, and was right not to release the bin Laden photograph.

No person who doubts bin Laden’s death will be convinced by a photograph released by the American government. Photos are easily doctored and if both American political parties are lying about the DNA evidence, they will lie about a picture.

Terrorists forced Americans to see evil on 9/11, but our government will not return the favour by showing us the dead body of our foe. We are better than the terrorists. We are civilised.

bin Laden is dead. Nothing is to be gained by flaunting his remains. Justice does not demand revenge, gloating, or cruelty to the bin Laden family. Their evil son, father, and husband has received justice. Let it end at that.

Reading “A Night To Remember” during Middle School made April 14 memorable all my life. Slowly the last survivors died and this year none are left who were on the great liner when it went down in the Atlantic.

I used to dream of it. (more…)

“He is a great friend of mine,” the man was saying, “a really fine fellow . . . good old what’s-his-name.” (more…)

Traveling and speaking teaches many deep lessons. One of those isn’t this observation: Christian women care more about their appearance than Christian men. My sociology friends would point out that I have done no survey, collected no data, and yet the evidence before my eyes has been overwhelming.

Try it yourself: When eating out, take a look at the difference between the married men (jeans and t-shirts, often soiled) and the married women (matching outfit, neatly coiffed). (more…)

Breathes there a man with a soul so dead that he only listens to music heard first when he was in high school?

Evidently, yes, if my experience is any guide. Give me a phone or IPod and I can tell you the age of the owner with more accuracy than Sherlock Holmes granted a walking stick. (more…)