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Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category

The Democrat’s Phony Diversity, Part 1

17 Aug

DNC DonkeyThis is in response to the article “The Jesus Litmus Test” by Peter Beinart. Peter Beinart is a senior political writer for a website, author of a recently published book, contributor to Time magazine, and an associate professor of journalism and political science. I’m sure he is more well-read, a better writer and must have more time on his hands to write up articles about politics… as it’s his job.

The DNC has the same old rallying cry: Diversity!

Yet the democrats were pro-choice for slavery until the Republican Party was established to fight the Democrats and overthrow slavery when they got Lincoln into office. They were the party of Senator Byrd, recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. Yet the DNC claims to be the party of diversity.

The party of Reid, Pelosi and Obama has relied on gender, racial and religious profiling, such as giving special aid on the basis of skin color instead of need and support from and for organizations like the National Organization of Women and the NAACP.

The right judges people on the basis of their character, the left judges people on the basis of their race, gender, religion, etc.

That’s why Harry Reid could say last week, “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK. Do I need to say more?” Reid was saying that they shouldn’t be treated differently because of their heritage, but then he treats them differently because of their heritage. This doublethink (believing two contradictory ideas at the same time) is what makes up the left’s view of diversity.

Most on the Left assume everyone thinks and acts the way they do. It’s more difficult to think in this closed-minded way on the Right, because the media, public schools, and state universities tend to veer strongly Left, so the Leftist worldview is unavoidable. Thus, when a conservative criticizes someone on the basis of character, it is incomprehensible to most on the Left. The Leftist assumes that the  Conservative must judge the same way she does, on the basis of race, gender, religion, etc. The Conservative is called racist if the person is of an ethnic minority, sexist if the person is female, homophobic if the person practices homosexuality, and bigoted if nothing else sticks.

That’s why anyone who didn’t vote for Obama is a racist. Anyone who doesn’t want a redefinition of the millennials-old term “marriage” is homophobic. The ethics investigations of two Democrats is racist.

The Democratic Party has been in the business of labeling and profiling people on the basis of a variety of demographics. They divide people by category and they have told everyone in every category that they must belong in the Democrat party or they are a Judas to their own kind.

We are all welcome, of course, as long as we do not bring our own distinctives with us. You’re welcome as a minority American, as long as you don’t bring your cultural family values with you. What they want is your skin color, not your heritage. You’re welcome as a Catholic as long as you reject the Catholic worldview. They want your label – leave your beliefs at the door.

You are welcome as long as you behave. Do what you are told to do. Believe what you are told to believe. Democrat politics trumps all religious belief. The party this takes over the place of your God. You lose the right to practice your own religion or to hold your own worldview.

There cannot be any real diversity because the worldview of the DNC conflicts with every religious system and traditional value system. The DNC must take priority over your faith, your worldview and your traditions. The only diversity allowed in the DNC is a facade without substance. It is as genuine as a fake city backdrop on a movie set. The appearance exists without substance.

Fake City Backdrop on Movielot

 

WSJ: The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity

16 Aug

There’s an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal today called “The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity“. It reminds me a little of what I wrote in “Treat Us Like We’re Stupid.”

Here’s an excerpt:

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.

 

How to Fail at Arguing #6: As others do to us

28 Jul

A 15 story mosque and Islamic community center has been approved within blocks of the site of 9/11. Naturally many New Yorkers and others are outraged because this is the site of a national tragedy and those who attacked civilians there did so in the name of Islam. Planting a mosque at the site seems incredibly insensitive and offensive to the memory of those who died on 9/11. The leader of the mosque project has said 9/11 was America’s fault and at least somewhat justified, refuses to call Hammas (not to be confused with hommus) a terrorist group, and the project is being funded from Islamic groups in Islamic countries. There’s a lot of reasons people are concerned.

That’s the story, here’s the argument I keep hearing:

We’ll let mosques be built anywhere when every Muslim country lets churches and synagogues be built freely.

Mosque at Ground Zero Protesters

Image from article on Politico.com

Whatever the right thing is, it is not to lower our standards, as a country that champions religious liberty, to those of countries to not allow religious liberty.

By justifying your actions by those of another, you’ve walked away from your own principles. If the above argument is all you have, you’re saying you want to belong to an anti-freedom country, though you condemn them.

This failure in arguing happens frequently, thanks in part to the short length of political terms (though it isn’t limited to politics).

That Democrats manipulated Republican primary elections is not, in itself, reason for the Republicans who champion ethics and character to manipulate elections. That liberals expand government is not justification for “conservatives,” who champion smaller government to expand government.

If you violate the principles you claim as your own, you lack character. Your choices are not justified by comparing them to those who don’t claim to hold the same principles you do.

There are legitimate reasons for wanting this Mosque moved to another location. But the more conversations and airwaves are filled with poor arguments like this, the less likely real dialog is possible.


Edit: Added new image and fixed some typos. (8/18/2010 – Second Jon)

 

“Keep Changing The World” by Mikeschair

27 Jul

When I heard this song on Way-FM Denver, my ears perked up. I think this song bothers me because it’s both so vague to not be about anything “something here is wrong,” and self-condemning “But we just move along to take care of our own.”

It actually reminds me of a song by Flight of the Conchords: Think about it. Both videos with lyrics are below:

YouTube Preview Image

Keep Changing The World by MIKESCHAIR lyrics:

Something here is wrong
There are children without homes
But we just move along to take care of our own
There’s so much suffering just outside our door
A cry so deafening
We just can’t ignore

To all the people who are fighting for the broken
All the people who keep holding on to love
All the people who are reaching for the lonely
Keep changing the world

Take a look around
Before the sun goes out
What’s lost can still be found
It’s not too late now
It only takes one spark to make the fire burn
So reach inside your heart and let this be the start

Chorus

I know you see the suffering
How they gone recover when people just look over like they don’t even notice them
Everyone whose focusing on ending all this hopelessness
You can change the world by changing who the world is hoping in

I see the sun coming up
It’s a brighter day
Let’s show the world that love is a better way
So lend a hand join the fight
‘Cause time is ticking away
Keep changing the world

I see you changing the world
Step up!

YouTube Preview Image
Think About It by Flight of the Conchords lyrics:

There’s children on the street using guns and knives
Taking drugs and each other’s lives
Killing each other with knives and forks
Calling each other names like ‘dork’

There’s people on the street getting diseases from monkeys
Yeah, that’s what I said – they’re getting diseases from monkeys
Now there’s junkies with monkey disease
Who’s touching these monkeys, please
Leave these poor sick monkeys alone
They’ve got problems enough as it is.

Man’s lying on the street
Some punk’s chopped off his head
I’m the only one who stops
To see if he’s dead
Mmm…
Turns out he’s dead.
And that’s why I’m singing

What…what is wrong with the world today?
What is wrong with the world today?
(Jemaine mumbles)
What…what is wrong with the world today?
You gotta think about it
Think think about it.

Good cops been framed and put into a can.
All the money that we’re making is going to the man.
What man?
Which man?
Who’s the man?
When’s a man a man?
What makes a man a man?
Am I a man?
Yes. Technically I am.

They’re turning kids into slaves just to make cheaper sneakers.
But hat’s the real cost?
‘Cause the sneakers don’t seem that much cheaper.
Why are we still paying so much for sneakers
When you got them made by little slave kids
What are your overheads?

Well, at the end of your life, you’re lucky if die,
Sometimes I wonder why we even try.
I saw a man lying on the street half dead
With knives and forks sticking out of his leg.
And he said,
“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow
Can somebody get that knife and fork out of my leg, please?
Can somebody please remove these cutleries from my knees?”

And then we break it down.
This is where we break it down
Ooh
This is where we break it down
Aah
This is where we do the whoa-o-o-o
Break it down
This is where we build it up now
We build it up now
We build it up now
We build it up now
We build it up now
Build it up
And then we stop

 

Ayn Rand Part 1: Ayn Rand, John Piper and Christian Objectivist Love

23 Jul

This is Part 1 of a 1956 Ayn Rand interview with Mike Wallace. This was, according to the Youtube video description, her first television interview.

I watched it for the first time today, and would be interested in your thoughts.

Below are some excerpts from the end of this video and related thoughts.

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Wallace: What’s wrong with loving your fellow man? Christ, every important moral leader in human history has taught us that we should love one another. Why then is this kind of love in your mind immoral?

Rand: It is immoral if it is a love placed above one’s self. It is more than immoral, it’s impossible.  Because when you are asked to love people indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of the fact of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.

Wallace: … isn’t the essence of love that it’s above self-interest?

Rand: Well, let me make it complete for you. What would it mean to have love above self-interest? It would mean, for instance, for a husband to tell his wife if he were moral, according to conventional morality that “I am marrying you just for your own sake. I have no personal interest in it, but I am so unselfish that I’m marrying you only for your own good.” Would a woman like that? … In love, the currency is virtue. You love people not ofr what you do for them or what they do for you. We love them for their values, their virtues which they have achieved in their own character. You don’t love causes. you don’t love everybody indiscriminately. You love only those who deserve it…

Wallace: … There are very few of us then, in this world, by your standards, who are worthy of love.

Rand: Unfortunately, yes. Very few. But it is open for everybody to make themselves worthy of it, and that is all that my morality offers them: A way to make themselves worthy of love, although that is not the primary motive.

But Rand’s illustration of a husband and wife does make sense. At minimum, many types – perhaps the strongest types of love are not devoid of self-interest. You’d be dead inside if you got nothing out of your love for a spouse, or a child. Per Rand, love isn’t love if you get nothing out of it.

This objectivist view of love stands in total opposition to the current political moves that declare love means each of us should make sacrifices of ourselves for “the common good,” even when we get nothing out of it. We are to be completely devoid of self-interest.

Is this love? Can love ever be devoid of self-interest?

My initial reaction is opposed to the objectivist idea – what about the good Samaritan? What about loving your neighbor as you love yourself? If people have to make themselves worthy of love, how can we love children? What about a child born with Down’s Syndrome? What about an elderly person with Alzheimer disease? This has always left me wondering if any form of objectivism can be merged with a Christian worldview*. Perhaps the answer is in the order of Jesus’ commands: Love God, and love your neighbor. Perhaps loving our neighbors is not the purpose in itself, but we love them because we love God. Loving strangers is, then, be part of loving  God.

But what about loving God? Is our love for God devoid of self-interest, or do you get something out of our love for God as we do from loving your spouse?

Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

This basic statement of the purpose of humankind declares we are purposed to get something from God – our own enjoyment.

John Piper builds off this in what he calls “Christian hedonism,” in his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, and through his ministry.

Piper seems to agree with Ayn Rand! About Love for God, Piper writes:

Hebrews 11:6 teaches, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God]. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” You cannot please God if you do not come to him looking for reward. Therefore, faith that pleases God is the hedonistic pursuit of God.

Ok, what about loving our enemies? While we are to expect nothing earthly in return, Piper writes that “we are given strength to suffer loss by the promise of a future reward.”

Throughout the Bible we are in fact commanded to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. To seek God who will give us the desires of our heart – who rewards those who seek him.

Ayn Rand’s view actually aligns with the biblical idea of following God, loving our neighbors and even loving our enemies. The politics of socialism do not.


* Ayn Rand does state in this interview that she is opposed to the Judeo-Christian traditions and opposed to churches, but that doesn’t mean that everything she thinks is wrong or that everything she thinks is incompatible with Christianity. While I haven’t studied Rand at lengths, she believes that reality is objective, and our moral guide is to use reason. If objective reality is Christianity – if biblical Christianity has the most reliable truth-claims and is the most reasonable view of reality, then Christianity and objectivism could work together.

 

Jason Gray – More Like Falling in Love

12 Jul
YouTube Preview Image

I heard this song recently on a local radio station. I had a problem with the lyrics I heard, then I looked them up. I think my concerns were valid.

When we tell God: “It’s gotta be like this, not like that,” then haven’t we put ourselves above God, telling him what things should be like?

The fact is, we are called to give our allegiance to love himself. We are given words from the one who is The Word. We’re given obligations by the one who laid down his life for us. There is something to believe in. And religion is just a set of beliefs about reality, which we have.

We don’t get to demand how God should act. That’s prideful self-idolatry.

What do you think?

Lyrics:

Give me rules
I will break them
Give me lines
I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet
It ought to be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It’s like I’m falling, oh
It’s like I’m falling in love

Give me words
I’ll misuse them
Obligations
I’ll misplace them
‘Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free
It’s gotta be

CHORUS

…It’s like I’m falling in love, love, love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made
Me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me

 
 

Cigarettes or Haughty Eyes?

04 Jul

7 things the Lord hates

7 things the Lord hates

Which is worse?

Church kids are well aware that swearing, smoking, and sexting* are bad.

Curiously, none of these made their way on to God’s top 7 list of sins in Proverbs 6:

There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:

haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,

a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,

a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

To many, this is a list of 7 things that characterizes church folks. We damn people for their cigarettes, and are adamant about our teens not smoking a hooka. We’d rather they have haughty eyes and lying tongues.

This is upside down. This is wrong. This is sin.

A co-worker once told me they’d left the church decades ago and had never been back. From some of my experiences with fellow church-goes, I can’t say I blame them – they likely interacted with people in the church characterized by this list of despicable things.

Rather than focusing on outward behaviour, or one-time actions, we should be focusing on the heart.

For my kids and the high school and college students with whom I volunteer, I’d rather them have cigarettes than haughty eyes.

* Sorry, I wanted a list if 3 🙂

 
 

Treat us like we’re stupid

01 Jul

I’ve heard various conversations about how a church can attract young adults. One comment I heard recently was that we need sermons that are not theologically deep if we want young adults and young families. I find it insulting to myself and others seen as young adults that there’s a presumption that to cater to us, you need to treat us like we’re stupid.

If you want shallow sermons, don’t blame my peers.

This comment led to this little rant below. This as written as “we” – I’m not writing on behalf of a specific team of people, nor in all cases of myself, but to communicate where I think 20-30 somethings are coming from. I’d love your thoughts. This is still a rough draft only slightly tweaked since I shared it with a few friends on Facebook.

Treat Us Like We’re Stupid

Squinting eye

We 20- and 30-somethings don’t actually want to be treated like we’re stupid. That shouldn’t be surprising. We don’t want things that are shallow, nor do we want things that are disingenuous. Marketers have lied to us since we were small children and now we’re tired of being lied to in sales-pitches, whether it’s for a product or a truth-claim.

Our parents and teachers told us we were all 1st place winners and we know that wasn’t true either. We know the world does not revolve around us, so don’t tell us that it does.

We like to think critically, and are at a stage in life where we’re open to asking very challenging questions about the core of what we believe, what others believe, and what we were taught growing up by our families, churches, schools, and culture. We have the passion and energy to pursue what is true, even if it isn’t convenient.

We have a tendency to question authority which means if you stand up as an authority, you need to back up what you’re saying, and be willing and eager to engage with our questions and challenges. Even if we come across as on-the-offensive or argumentative, we’re not being insulting – we’re seeking to get past all the sales-pitches and agendas and get to what what is really real.

While we’ll take advantage of free stuff, we won’t actually sell-out on the basis of free pizza, t-shirts, coffee or movie tickets.

iron figures holding hands

We value relationships and community. That’s why we’re on Facebook – it’s to connect with people far more than it is to annoy you with status updates about Farmville. Community cannot be faked. If you don’t value your relationships with us, please don’t fake it. We can tell, and it’s insulting.

We believe that we can seek what is right and true together through these relationships. We believe that we and our friends are in this together. We think we can spur each other on by both encouraging and challenging each other. We can argue and disagree with each other without destroying our relationships, because those are so very valuable to us.

We aren’t stuck in our ways. Not yet – apparently that will happen to us in a few years. Right now, we change our minds. Sometimes frequently. The benefit is that we can move in the right direction, which is what we want. The danger is that we can move in the wrong direction. Treating us like we’re stupid is more likely to repulse us from what you think is the right direction. The people who don’t treat us like we’re stupid earn more of our respect.

If you want yourself and your worldview to get our respect, treat us like real people. Give us what is real. And deep. And genuine. Admit where the complications are with what you want us to believe – if you say there’s no struggle in believing what you believe we’ll just assume you’re being disingenuous.

Don’t treat us like we’re children. We’re about the same age as Jesus when he was active in ministry. We’re not junior adults. We’re real adults. We’re going through life’s struggles, starting jobs, businesses and families. Many of us are mothers and fathers with children of our own. We’re already your baristas, computer techs, medical staff and servers. Soon we may well be your employers, professors, doctors, and religious and political leaders.

Please don’t treat us like we’re stupid. We’re not. We see through the sales-pitches and are seeking a story that we can believe in because it’s real, not because it sounds nice and comes with an X-Box or it feels like Starbucks.

We’re not stupid, but we have a lot to learn. We’re working on it. We think the ability to change our minds is good, and hope we don’t settle in our ways so much that we stop challenging ourselves. It’s because we want to learn and change for the better that we’re so inquisitive and challenging.

We’re sorry if we are difficult to understand. If you think we’re hard to understand, just wait for the next generation that has been on MySpace and cell phones since they were 3. Good luck with them!

Copyright Jonathan Green April 9, 2010