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Posts Tagged ‘ethics’

Turning “Follow the Money” into Heroic Leadership. Obama on Gay Marriage.

10 May

How is Time considered credible to anyone with garbage like this?

They say the arc of history bends toward justice.

Who says it? Who are you quoting, or rather, misquoting? It was the Republican Baptist Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. who made this quote by Theodore Parker famous. Parker, it seems, was referring to the end of slavery, a world wide immorality that characterized the entire world until movements of Christians in England and Republicans in the US changed everything. King would respond to the question of how long it would be until equal rights with “Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

So “Toure” starts by framing the argument on MLK’s belief that denial of people’s Declaration rights (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness) would end, but misquotes King to remove the absolute morality (inserted “history” and removed “moral universe”), which was the basis of King’s statement.

If that’s true then as a nation we’re having a hard time bending on the issue of gay rights.

Ok… If the arc of history bends toward justice, we’re having a hard time bending on one issue. So if the arc of history doesn’t bend toward justice, then we’re not having a hard time bending on this issue? We’re only at sentence 2 and the writer’s ability to construct sentences is already in question.

“gay rights.”

This is a curious phrase to apply to a discussion of marriage. My marriage is a marriage and would be regardless of whether the state recognized it. People were married before the government granted marriage licenses, thus it doesn’t seem that the government’s distribution of certificates actually affects marriage.

What are rights, anyway? Looking back to the founding documents, we see rights to life and liberty, to speech, gun ownership, the press, etc.

  • The Right fights for the right to life, even for unborn humans and people in comas. The Left seeks death in both cases.
  • The Right fights for the right to liberty (to do what one wishes with one’s self and the product of one’s labor without infringing on these same rights of others) by pushing for less regulation and lower taxation. The Left believes the government can decide what to do with you (Obamacare) and your stuff (taxation and redistribution of wealth) better than you.
  • The Right fights for the right to the pursuit of happiness through pushing for private property ownership and less regulation. The left fights against this, believing you are too dumb to pursue happiness and can’t be trusted with tough choices such as what food to eat and what snacks your kids can buy.
  • The Right fights for the right to free speech and press by pushing back against Leftist policies like the fairness doctrine.
  • The Right fights for the right to bear arms. The Left consistently seeks to limit this right.
  • The Right fights for the free exercise of religion by working to preserve people’s ability to live out their religious beliefs. The Left has made it illegal to do so in many situations and with Obamacare are working to force religious hospitals and other businesses to either cease exercising their religion or cease providing health care.

Rights are consistently defended by conservatives, and consistently assaulted by progressives. Apparently they’re just seeking progress in taking away your rights.

But this week will be remembered as an historic turning point because President Obama threw political caution to the wind and came out as the man who can put principle over politics in announcing his support for marriage equality. “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Robin Roberts in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.

After Joe Biden came out of the closet as a gay marriage supporter, news broke that several big dollar donors would stop supporting Obama unless he changed his position to support the same. That’s what the article’s author means when he “threw political caution to the wind and came out as the man who can put principle over politics” : He did what would get him more money. Wow. Caution to the wind, principle over politics. Reversing positions to get more money. That’s inspiring! It’s heroic!

With Obama’s declaration that he “personally” thinks one thing, and publicly thinks the opposite, believing the federal government should stay out of it, we have clarity: instead of still trying to hold both sides on the issue, he’s… trying to hold both sides on the issue. So, with his public policy as the president remaining exactly the same, what’s changed?

  • Obama’s earliest record on the issue was in 1996, when he answered questions, in writing declaring “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages” as he ran for Illinois Senate.
  • In 2008 he spoke on stage with Rick Warren, saying “For me as a Christian, it’s also a sacred union… God’s in the mix”

The only change here is that Obama’s temporary pro-traditional-marriage position was picked up when it would benefit his running for office to claim Christian values, and dropped when politically expedient as a fundraising effort for re-election.

The “Toure” article goes on to get facts wrong, contradict itself, and commit most logical fallacies you could name. If you enjoy pain, you can read the entire article. It’s disappointing that this type of poorly written inflammation of an article is considered reputable and worthwhile, but I’m not a leftist, so I’m not calling on people to destroy him and his employment as he has done with Rush Limbaugh.

 
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Posted in Culture, How to Fail at Arguing, Politics

 

Dumping Starbucks

08 May

As a frequent customer and shareholder, I emailed Starbucks last week questioning information I had seen at DumpStarbucks.com , which claims that Starbucks is using their profits to lobby government to re-define marriage. Here’s the correspondence.

My wife and I frequent this Starbucks and several others. We are also shareholders. I’m at one location now and just saw a link to the “Dump Starbucks” website which reads in part:

On January 24th, 2012, Starbucks issued a memorandum declaring that same-sex marriage 'is core to who we are and what we value as a company.Starbucks also used its resources to participate in a legal case seeking to overturn a federal law declaring marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

We are very conscious of where our money goes and we do not support the overturning of laws in the pursuit of redefining millennia-old religious terminology. Is this information accurate? Is every purchase and every stock buy we make a contribution toward efforts to work against some of our core beliefs?

Thank you,

[SecondJon]

I received a response from Victor at Starbucks Customer Service:

Hello,Thank you for contacting Starbucks.

At Starbucks, we deeply respect the views of our customers and partners (employees) and recognize that there is genuine passion surrounding this topic. Starbucks has many constituents, and from time to time we will make decisions that are consistent with our values and heritage but may be inconsistent with the views of a particular group.

From our very earliest days, Starbucks has strived to create a company culture that puts our people first and treats everyone equitably. Our company has a lengthy history of leading on and supporting policies that promote equality and inclusion, and we are proud to be one of several leading Northwest employers that support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality. We made this decision through the lens of humanity and our commitment to embracing diversity.

We have 200,000 people that work for Starbucks around the world and the equity of our brand has been defined by the relationship we have with our partners and the relationship they have with our customers. Put simply, the success we’ve enjoyed and the resulting shareholder value created are directly linked to the pride our partners have for the company they work for and their connection with the communities we serve.

If you have any further questions or concerns that I was unable to address, please feel free to let me know.

Sincerely,

Victor

customer service

2 points:

Victor wrote that “…the success we’ve enjoyed and the resulting shareholder value created” are because of things like lobbying to redefine marriage. If that were the case, why isn’t there a big sign by the register of every Starbucks declaring they’re opposed to the traditional definition of marriage, that “money from every purchase is used to lobby government to redefine marriage?” Because it’s a lie. They benefit only because they hide their activities and hide behind ambiguity.

“Recognizing marriage equality” sounds nice, but also very ambiguous. As G. K. Chesterton wrote in Eugenics and Other Evils (a book I recommend, available online free), “evil always takes advantage of ambiguity,” so I followed up with an email seeking clarity:

Hello Victor,

Thanks for your response. As a frequent purchaser of products and a shareholder, I’m writing back for clarification, recognizing the power of the money I have invested in Starbucks.

What do you mean by “marriage equality”? My understanding is that currently any man and any woman can get married. The restrictions aren’t based on anything except 1) only 2 people and 2) a man and a woman.

There have historically been efforts to redefine marriage to change the legal marrying age, allow polygamy, or even change from gender restriction to discrimination based on sexual orientation, something like “2 same-sex people can be married, but only if they have sex with each other,” seemingly replacing the gender restriction with a sexual orientation or sexual activity restriction.

I’m guessing you aren’t the one who came up with the policy or the one who decided the rational of Starbucks’ using of my investment money to support the policy, but can you give some clarity of what the policy is that is being supported?

Thanks,

[SecondJon],
Customer and Shareholder

This is the crux of the issue in my mind. Currently, marriage is not defined as “a contract a man and a woman who love each other,” nor as “A man and a woman who have sex.” Both of those situations are plentiful outside of marriage. Legally, marriage is a contract between a man and a woman, recognized and encouraged through some limited benefits, such as additional tax filing options, because since Aristotle philosophers and politicians have seen the importance of strong family units. Certainly our perspective of what makes a family is changing.

Perhaps in reaction to their own parents not living out their marriage commitment, increasing numbers of couples are living together, having and raising children together without ever sealing the relationship with the commitment of a marriage certificate; others have a slightly more sophisticated gang mentality, where they see their group of friends as their family. Obama’s re-election campaign, with their Life of Julia, family is defined as one’s self and the government. As Debra J. Saunders, in the San Fransisco Chronicle, pointed out:

Until her son goes to kindergarten, Julia’s cartoon world does not depict any males, except one, as shown in this quote: “Under President Obama: Julia decides to have a child.”

What’s the goal of re-defining the family away from the natural father-mother-children unit? That’s a long and depressing story. For today, my point is just that it’s happening.

Anyway, Starbucks replied:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Starbucks.

From the current perspective we are using, we are classifying marriage equality as involving 2 consenting adults.

Thanks again for writing us.  If you ever have any questions or concerns in the future, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Sincerely,

Nicholas

customer service

2 consenting adults? Starbucks is lobbying for incest? That’s weird.

Of course they aren’t lobbying for incest. They’re just continuing to be ambiguous.

People cry out “discrimination!” when traditional marriage is upheld, because marriage is defined as:

A commitment of certain things between a man and a women.

What’s the discrimination? There’s nothing in the definition of marriage that explores or restricts based on sexual orientation; there’s nothing in the definition of marriage that restricts based on anything other than gender. One man, one woman. They may not love each other, they may not ever sleep together. The only discrimination is the declaration:

men and women are different.

Why does this drive the Left crazy?

Efforts to re-define marriage are seeking a sort of definition like:

Marriage is a commitment between any two “consenting adults” as long as they have government-approved sexual behavior.

It’s strange. 2 siblings who want the financial benefits of marriage can’t get married if they’re heterosexual. But they could have the financial benefits if they’re homosexual.

Efforts to redefine marriage in favor of gay marriage introduce never before seen discrimination into the definition of marriage.

Efforts to redefine marriage in favor of gay marriage also seek to declare by fiat that these relationships are as beneficial to society as traditional marriage, without any historical reference.

There are so many things we like about Starbucks: the atmosphere; the employees; the employee benefits; double blended java chip frappuccinos with an added pump of white mocha. Unfortunately, they’re using the money we give as customers and shareholders to add to the effort to weaken marriage, the foundation of society as Aristotle pointed out. They say we should be okay with it because our shares have increased in value.

I’m sure many people can be bought that easily. But not us. We’ve stopped spending at Starbucks unless we need to meet with someone there, and we’re selling our shares.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics

 

Work It! aka, Obedience Excemptions for the Rich

25 Apr

This post is part 3 in a series exploring the biblical principles around retirement and saving for retirement.

We have been trained in our culture and in our Christianity to value retirement. What does it mean to retire? To stop working.

To withdraw from one’s occupation, business, or office; stop working. – American Heritage Dictionary

Leave one’s job and cease to work, especially because one has reached a particular age. – Compact Oxford Dictionary.

Some declare the Bible has anything to say about retirement, thus it’s amoral and anything goes. While our translations of the Bible may not contain the word “retirement,” the Bible has a lot to say about work. Since retirement is simply to cease working, we must understand what the Bible teaches about work.

Why do we work?

Who should work?

How long should we work for?

Are we to cease working, and if so, when?

Work is not a curse. It’s tempting to think so because of the curse in Genesis 3:

    And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
(Genesis 3:17-19 ESV)

Work is referenced here, but Adam had already been put to work.

    The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
(Genesis 2:15 ESV)

Further, Eve was created to help Adam.

    Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
(Genesis 2:18 ESV)

Work was not the result of the curse. Work is an essential reason we exist. So what was cursed? Adam wasn’t cursed. The ground was.

Conclusion 1: When we choose to stop working, we’re going against how God created us to be.

Work is also one of the 10 commandments:

    “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
(Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)

Humankind’s calling as seen in Adam is reconfirmed as a command here. One of the reasons we work is because it is commanded, as part of loving God. How is it loving God? By modeling our lives after him. God worked for 6 days and rested, so we are commanded to work for 6 days and take 1 day of rest, every day a reminder of God.

So we’ve seen 3 reasons to work from Genesis and Exodus:

  1. It’s how God created us to be.
  2. God commands us to.
  3. It is living a life modeled after God.

Conclusion 2: When we choose to stop working, we are considering ourselves exempt from God’s commands.

Conclusion 3: When we choose to stop working, we cease living a life modeled after God.

The New Testament reiterates the importance of working:

    Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
(2 Thessalonians 3:6-11 ESV)

There’s multiple principles here: the importance of paying for what one uses; the importance of toil and labor; the consequence of not working is to become a busybody. The word “busybody” in the Greek is a hapax logomena, that is, a word only used once in the Bible, so the meaning isn’t totally clear. It may mean busying one’s self with non-work, such as a hobby; it may mean meddling in the affairs of others. One thing is certain from the context:

We become bad people when we choose to stop working.

Conclusion 4: When we choose to stop working, we ignore Paul’s warnings of what we will become.

Conclusion 5: When we choose to stop working, Christians should keep away from us. Yikes!

There is no biblical declaration that it is ever ok to choose to stop working. By holding to the idea that saving for a self-sufficient retirement is appropriate, we’re saying the rich can purchase exemption from God’s commands. Would we do this with any of the other 9 commandments? Is it okay for the rich hold another god before God? To steal? To dishonor their parents? To murder?

On passage that is used to justify retirement is the end of Numbers 8, which the ESV even subtitles “Retirement of the Levites:”

    And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”
(Numbers 8:23-26 ESV)

The Levites were not to stop working! They were to stop doing service in the tent of meeting and change jobs to serve by keeping guard.

It’s quite true that we may not be able to go full pace at our jobs for our entire lives. The biblical response is not to stop working, but to find a new career that we can do well.

Choosing to stop work is in contradiction to the Bible.

Agree or disagree? Let me know in the comment section. I’m just working out what all of this means and am writing up the biblical arguments as I see them. Please feel free to show where I’ve gone wrong.

 
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Posted in Culture, personal, Spirituality

 

“Do not store up:” If He Meant It, Would You Dare?

24 Apr

When Jesus gave the command to not store up on earth, could he have meant we are not to store up on earth?

This question has resulted in a strong backlash and plenty of insults. I thought asking the question of Western Christians might be like kicking a hornets nest, and that suspicion proved true.  Today I was told that I was forcing the idea of saving for the future on this text where Jesus speaks of saving for the future. I was called a socialist for suggesting we obey the biblical commands to take care of one’s elderly family members who can no longer work.

How I have reacted (and now see others reacting) to this text, reminds me of my children. Sometimes my kids pretend they don’t hear me. If they can pretend they didn’t hear or didn’t understand what I told them to do, they have justification, in their little minds, for doing whatever they are doing. We adults do the same thing with scripture. The Bible is crystal clear on some points and vague on others. Sometimes we get those mixed up because it’s more comfortable to be, for example, secure in an age of accountability, and unsure of whether our gossip is really a big problem.

I wonder if it’s worth backing off a bit and thinking about how strong our dedication to Christ is. We know that God is perfectly loving and perfectly just. Within that, God has commanded people to do all sorts of crazy things.  Would you dare obey his commands, whatever they are?

If Jesus commanded you not to save for self-sufficient retirement, but to give away the excess he entrusts to you, would you dare obey?

When the reader responds with “Jesus will never ask me that, so I refuse to answer the question!” the reader is just avoid answering the question because he knows he has the wrong answer. The reader doesn’t trust Jesus enough to even hypothetically obey a command like this. The fear and insecurity we feel drives how we approach the biblical text. Before we open the Bible, we’ve put up limits to say “This far, God, and no farther!” We are willing to obey Jesus to a certain point of discomfort, but this is asking too much!

Only those who can answer the above question affirmatively, with or without trembling, are able to approach the text and consider what it has to say.

I plan to write out some more thoughts as I work through this and other related passages, but if the reader can’t answer even hypothetically obey Jesus, I don’t think it will make much sense – it’s simply outside of the reader’s modified version of Christianity.

 
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Posted in Culture, Spirituality

 

Good Earth FriDay: Religions in Conflict

22 Apr

Today is the observance two observances.

Christians today commemorate “Good Friday” – the day in which we remember the crucifixion of Jesus (regardless of what day of the week he was originally killed).

Today is also the annual observance of “Earth Day.”

Both focus on commitment to an entity bigger than ourselves, both focus on personal action and commitment.

Yet only one is religious. Right?

Strangely some very religious-sounding language is used by environmentalists and specifically the EPA’s website.  Here’s a few examples:

  1. Belief.Faith is not believing something without evidence, but is believing in something that you can’t see or prove. People can have faith, for example, in the reliability of a friend – this is not to say there’s no evidence, but it cannot be proven that the friend will come through, even if they say they will. Christian faith is strongly based on evidence of the authors of the Bible.  Environmental faith, as Al Gore explains in this video, is based on the beliefs of Al Gore and certain holy writings which consist of select research that Al Gore canonized based on whether they agree with his opinion:
    YouTube Preview Image
  2. Repentance.Repentance speaks to the change of one’s mind that is reflected in a change of behavior. When Christians talk about repentance, they typically mean stopping harmful behavior and committing to healthier, holy, behavior. Here’s where the EPA falls with repentance:

    Earth Day Repentence: Choose at least 5 actions you'll commit to. Use less water and electricity, commute without polluting, reuse and recycle, and more.

    Repent! Repent! Then participate in the 5 sacraments of environmentalism!

  3. Personal Commitment.The Bible speaks to the need not just for one time of belief or a period of repentance upon belief,  but personal, daily commitment to wrap your life around Jesus. The EPA uses the very same language encouraging all to “Make a personal commitment to make environmental protection a part of your daily life.”

    Make a personal commitment to make environmental protection a part of your daily life

    Read your Bible, pray every day? No! replace that commitment with making environmental protection a part of your daily life.

  4. Daily devotions. Many church kids grew up singing songs like “Read your Bible, pray every day!” There’s a general encouragement to be exposed to and affected by the Bible every day. There’s even daily text message services to get you a daily Bible verse, which is similar to what President Obama says is the extent of his worship. The EPA has an equivalent, and you can sign up to be notified every day with new instructions of how to be sanctified in their eyes.They’ve even got an alternative podcast to keep sermons in your ears!

    Learn a green tip every day: Sign up to get a daily email tip during Earth Month in April.

    Daily devotions in text and podcast from the EPA

  5. Community. Christianity cannot be practiced alone. The Bible  speaks of groups of Christians as a body, both connected to and supporting each other, and urges Christians to meet together. The first thing on the Earth Day web page of the EPA is a link to find a church.. er… environmentalist events in your area to keep you involved in the faith.

    Make every day Earth Day and help protect health and the environment throughout the year.

    Get plugged into a community of those who share your beliefs and live them out every day, all year. Christianity? Nope. Environmentalism.

  6. Evangelism. Even if a person has believed in Jesus, repented, committed, exercised daily disciplines, and is involved in community, they aren’t really a disciple of Christ unless they are also a disciple maker, spreading the word to others. The alternative is true as well – once you’ve committed your life to environmentalism, you must be an environmental evangelist to “spread the word” to get others to believe, repent, etc. Here’s my final clip from the EPA website:

    Teach others about the Environment: One of the best ways to spread the word on environmental protection is to teach a class at your local school

    Curiously, they've even capitalized "Environment" in the title but not the other words, similar to how Christians capitalize "God."

 

The EPA isn’t all. Earthday.org says you need to pledge, volunteer, evangelize, and even tithe… er… donate to the cause.

My purpose in highlighting the religious nature of environmentalism this Good Earth FriDay is not to say we should abuse the earth. That idea seems so absurd I’m not sure who thinks we ought to destroy our home, and normally when that claim is made, it’s simply to end the discussion by name-calling.

We ought to be responsible stewards of the earth. We should also recognize that environmentalism as it is being pushed by our government and others today is structured in a way to be opposed to other systems of truth claims, such as Christianity.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics

 

Keep the Democrats in my uterus?

13 Apr
Protest Sign: Keep your Boehner out of my uterus!

Protest Sign: Keep your Boehner out of my uterus!

The signs are back. Boehner, speaker of the house, wanted to remove federal funding of abortion from the budget as one of the cuts. The thinking goes something like this:

If someone wants to stop spending tax-payer dollars on killing an unborn yet scientifically distinct human life, it’s an invasion of someone else’s rights. They should not only have the right to take this human life, but you should pay for it through your taxes.

Where was the outburst of anger when Obama, Pelosi, and Reid rammed through the Obama health care mandate? This gave more government control over every aspect of health, where was the liberal outcry that government should stay out of our bodies?

Evidently, these protesters want Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi in their uterus and John Boehner out. They want legislation out of their uterus, but they want government-paid medical equipment in there scrubbing it. The signs seem like it’s a charge against big government intervention but the argument is the opposite. The sign would more accurately read: “Big government needs to be encouraging and funding abortion.” Statistically Planned Parenthood targets the poor, and a higher percentage of minorities are persuaded to abortion than whites. If the goal was to rid America of poor an brown folks, abortion would be the way to go. In fact, that’s why Planned Parenthood was started – to “to create a race of thoroughbreds” by rectifying “the unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit.’” Perhaps the sign should more accurately read:

Big government needs to be encouraging and funding abortion for the lower class and people with brown skin.

I’ve likely severely offended many readers, particularly if they found this article from a web search. Abortion is a highly charged issue for a few reasons:

  1. For lack of measurable results, the feminist movement pinned their success to the legalization and subsequently federal funding of abortion. The entire feminist push in our culture became focused not on celebrating and valuing what women do, but in promoting abortion because it was a situation unique to women (making it a woman’s issue) and along with more freely available contraceptives, claimed to free up women to have consequence-free sex just like men.
  2. Abortion is highly personal and highly emotional. Women who find themselves considering the option are in a huge crisis where the options seem like death of the child or suicide of self. If they keep the child their life feels like it will be destroyed, and they may not feel much more hope for the baby. With the political and cultural push for and funding of abortion, it’s not surprising that women make this choice. We’re paying their doctors to do it!

 

Frederica Mathewes-Green wrote an article about pregnancy centers a few years ago. Most disturbing to me are the statistics that it’s overwhelmingly those with wealth that want funding for Planned Parenthood to be used for providing abortions for poorer Americans. The rich are paying for abortion to be promoted for the poor who don’t want it. Here’s an exerpt:

Those who provide alternatives to abortion believe that pregnancy is just one facet of the woman’s larger and more complex life. They believe she is not best served by treating her as merely a polluted uterus in need of a good scrubbing. Her life is tangled with the life of her child growing within, woven with the lives of the child’s father, with her own parents, friends and co-workers in a tapestry of lives. To remove the child is to cut a hole in the tapestry, by literally cutting into human flesh, tearing the child apart and tearing the mother’s heart. Unplanned pregnancy is not one problem, but a host of problems, great and small; pregnancy care providers try to solve them, one at a time.

Problem pregnancy is associated frequently with poverty, and Planned Parenthood selects the poorer neighborhoods; it is popularly believed that abortion is the best solution for the poor. At any rate, this belief is popular with those who are not poor. Polls regularly show that those with higher income levels are the most likely to endorse public funding of abortion, a gift that the recipients are not eager to accept. David Gergen, in an editorial written before he joined the Clinton administration, pointed out that a 1992 Reader’s Digest poll discovered “poorer Americans are the most opposed to federal funding [for abortion]. Among those earning less than $15,000 per year, opposition ran 63 to 32 percent against funding, while those making over $60,000 favored it by 57 to 41 percent.” Gergen asks, “Is Clinton listening to the people he wants to help?”

When people offer to help you by giving you money to eliminate your children, there’s an implied message that’s hard to miss. A friend who worked in an abortion referral center stocked a flier which explained how we could reduce our tax burden by helping poor women have abortions; one day a Hispanic client came in, slapped the flier on the counter, and hissed, “This is what you really think of us.” Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an enthusiastic eugenicist who wanted “to create a race of thoroughbreds” by rectifying “the unbalance between the birth rate of the ‘unfit’ and the ‘fit.’” Planned Parenthood still has great admiration for Sanger, and president Faye Wattleton said a few years ago that the organization is “just following in the footsteps” of its founder.

Two brands of compassion, each offering what they think is best, but one gets the lion’s share of funding. While pregnancy care centers are a woman-to-woman operation, with funds raised in batches through bake sales and small grants, abortion is more lavishly supported from above. Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the recipient of impressive grants from a long list of foundations and corporations, from Helena Rubenstein to the Pew Charitable Trusts to the New York Times Company. In a typical year, $125 million was received via Government grants and contracts. Planned Parenthood has fought for federal funding of abortion, and with the expanded provisions of the Hyde Amendment will now be able to charge more abortions to the public purse. Some states, as well, use taxpayer funds to underwrite abortions: in Maryland the bill totals $3 million per year. There is plenty of money from above to eliminate the children of the poor, and little need for bake-sale fundraising from below. The director of Planned Parenthood in Maryland is a well-mannered, sober Bostonian in a dark suit; it is hard to imagine him raising funds by poking his head in an office door, like Gloria’s volunteers, and asking how many want a pastrami sub.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics, Reason

 

Bugs or babies?

12 Apr

Bugs or the babies: which deserve more rights?

According to the United Nations, led by Bolivia, bugs and beetles out value our babies.

Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving “Mother Earth” the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.

Bolivia recently passed the legislation on the basis of religious worship of the earth deity, “Pachamama.”

Ought wasps have the same rights as women?

This legislation is immoral. When there’s a total moral equivalence between a baby girl and an earwig, how can there be real respect for life? At minimum the conclusion is that it’s a toss up as to which life is worth compassion. Choosing between the life of a mother and her birthing baby is a moral dilemma. This legislation makes killing the mother the moral equivalent of stepping on a spider. In fact, killing a spider and it’s eggs would be a greater moral crime than killing a human mother and her unborn child.

The Judeo-Christian world view argues in the contrary that humans are unique and have both unity and distinction with nature. According to the biblical narrative, humans are created from the dust of the earth and as he breathes his breath, or spirit, into them, they are created in the image of God. Human life is sacred. Our responsibility to both dominate and care for the earth is also a sacred responsibility.

Yet there is a repulsive reaction to Judeo-Christian values in world government, this animistic theology is welcomed. This should bring clarity – religious values are shunned if the United Nations is opposed to the ideas, and embraced if the ideas help the UN achieve its goals. The problem for those seeking greater centralized government power is not religion – it’s certain values that they will reject whether religious or not.

Two Bolivian women. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America

The values pushed by giving the earth spirits rights is simply another way to push for stripping people of their rights. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. The land is rich in natural resources, so business has been clamoring to come into the country. This legislation will stop work, stop jobs, and increase poverty. This is what the legislation is doing in Bolivia; this is what the UN is pushing for.

The UN isn’t interested in the planet, and they aren’t interested in Pachamama worship. This is, in the end, simply a power grab by governments. The legislation “establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature’s complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.”

That’s right – the whole idea is that what the state says now becomes a matter of rights. To go against the government is a rights-violation issue. This turns the idea of rights on it’s head, taking rights away from people and giving them to the state in the name of ‘mother earth.’

Even in Bolivia it’s clear that this is primarily about governments accruing more power over the people, as the Bolivian president has been declaring for years that the first step to save the planet is “to end capitalism.”

The environmentalist movement is being used in an effort to strip you of your basic human rights and freedom. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon that provides the opportunity to escape from freedom, there’s a better approach.

Rather than basing our ideas on fear (that the earth is about to die) or hatred (of those evil capitalists), we should be basing our ideas on facts. Christians ought to be taking care of the planet in ways that are effective because it is a sacred responsibility; because it is God’s creation; because it is our origin. Much of the specific ways to be “environmental” are agenda-based to gain votes or reward certain companies and industries for political support. A healthier and more effective approach requires better self-education and less readily adopting political and cultural trends.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics, Reason

 

About the open letters about Planned Parenthood funding.

21 Oct

I recently posted open letters to Kohl’s and Staples asking if they support Planned Parenthood. Kohl’s replied that they do not, and I’m still waiting to hear back from Staples.

What is my purpose in writing these letters and figuring out if these large companies where I spend money are financial-backers of abortion?

It’s an interesting struggle, figuring this out, and I’d love any thoughts you have to contribute to a discussion of this kind.

What’s the point of me writing to Kohl’s (who confirmed within 1 business day that they do not donate to Planned Parenthood)? If a clothing store supports Planned Parenthood, I may be able to buy the same clothes from another source. I can’t, however, go without pants altogether. That would be showing the world something, but it wouldn’t be showing them Jesus.

Am I responsible for what Kohl’s, Staples, or other companies do with their money? To answer this, I think about Jesus’ command that the people of Israel pay their taxes, and this money was used to oppress them as well as wage war against others. Jesus didn’t put the responsibility for Rome’s crimes on the people paying taxes. There is no indication that Jesus thought that by paying their taxes they were guilty of Rome’s crimes.The responsibility of the people was to be law-abiding citizens, and to live at peace with all people as far as it was up to them.

So what is our personal responsibility today? The direct application is that we should pay our taxes as required bylaw. A more general principle about money is that we are supposed to be good stewards. Unlike taxes, buying products is not required by law, it it discretionary. (Except for healthcare under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid plan.) That is, while we need clothes, we aren’t obligated by law to buy our clothes from a specific store. Every dollar spent is a vote in favor of who you’re giving the money to.

For a long time I avoided WalMart because of horrible customer service. I avoid Casa Bonita because the food is awful. I avoided The Sharper Image because it was expensive. I walk out of movies and get my money back if it’s overly obscene (Anchorman, Super Bad), a mockery of the very book it’s supposed to based on (The Runaway Jury) or a comedy that’s not funny at all (Napoleon Dynamite). These are all understandable, and I’m adding another category to this list: stores I’ll avoid because of what they do with their profits.

My goal isn’t to start a boycott to shut a place down or put people out of work. My goal is to take the personal responsibility that is given me in being a good steward of the money which God has put me in stewardship.

Do I bear personal responsibility for what someone else does once I give them my money? No. But I do bear responsibility for giving it to them in the first place. Why give my money to a place that supports crimes against humanity when there’s another option?

I’m willing to go to one store over another to save $5. But am I willing to spend the $5 extra if that less of the money that leaves my stewardship is then used for evil? Is $5 worth more than a human life? (Certainly of the $5, perhaps a few cents will be used as a donation to Planned Parenthood and pays for a tiny fraction of an abortion. But by going down this road, we’re making an argument that supporting a certain percent of evil is fine, or else you’ll end up calculating a price tag on a human life. I don’t think that following that logic will lead us to a good place. I think it’s safer to base the argument on good stewardship.)

Would you buy coffee from Al Qaida if it were cheaper than Starbucks? Hopefully you answer “No, because I’d be sponsoring evil just to save a few dollars on a latte.”  I’m proposing that this is the same reasoning we should be using whenever we spend the money under our stewardship.

An investor takes someone else’s money and invests in companies. Good investors will research what they’re investing in to make sure it’s worthwhile. They do their research before investing. And while the investor isn’t responsible for a CEOs decisions, they are constantly watching these companies and the people who lead them to make sure it’s still a good way to invest this money that others have put under their stewardship.

Why would we consider stewardship of God’s stuff less important than an investor’s stewardship other people’s investment funds?

I’m not arguing for making your own clothes from cotton grown in your backyard to avoid the chance of some of someone else being a bad steward. I’m not arguing that you bear personal responsibility for what Microsoft or Starbucks, Mardel’s or Chik-fil-a does with their profits. Perhaps in the future I will make those arguments as I explore these issues, but today I am simply arguing the following:

It is worth the time to learn about where you’re investing God’s money, and choose the options that contribute least to evil according to the information you are able to obtain.

 
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Posted in Politics, Reason, Spirituality

 

Monopoly Morality

30 Jul

Is it ethical to pocket money from a bank error in your favor?

Is it ethical to take advantage of affirmative action if you are opposed to it?

Is it ethical to file for tax credit incentives for home improvement projects when you don’t think the government should be raising taxes on everyone to give the money to those who can afford solar panels?

Is it ethical to win money from recreational gambling when that money comes from those addicted to gambling?

While it was always fun to get this card from Community Chest, the ethical questions are real.

Or do I just have an overactive conscience?

 
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Posted in personal