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Obamamania: “Secret Chords?”

PLEASE NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED

You may access it here:
http://www.upfromfundamentalism.com/2008/07/obamamania-secret-chords/

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I haven’t figured out how to display the comments all at once and respond to them serially – which is what I would like to do — so I have called in some help. In the mean time, let me respond to the comments as I understand the claims.

ANDREW, KENNY and BEN

It seems to me that Andrew has focused our discussion on the right question but I will quibble with how it is framed. It is overstated to frame it as broadly as “Can a pro-life Christian never vote for a pro-choice person?” That is not the issue.

Obviously, as Edmund Burke or maybe Russell Kirk once said, politics is the art of the possible, and is not a purely idealistic exercise. So, when one votes one must consider the candidates, the alternative candidates, and the practical issue about whether the candidate themselves will have any opportunity to exercise power on the abortion issue. Obviously, the abortion decision might not have any play in a choice between 2 pro-abortion candidates. If we were picking between Giuliani and Obama, this would be a much less important presidential race in my mind. Important, but much less important.

The important question is: Does Abortion control Presidential politics until Roe v. Wade is squarely overturned?

Or, as is suggested by other posts, do other political considerations — the war, poverty programming, and so on — have any purchase on this decision?

My answers are YES and NO. For me, Abortion controls the Presidential decision until this is resolved. Until this dark period in our moral history is over, I am a 1 issue voter. And I don’t understand how any serious Christian can be otherwise. The magnitude of the evil of abortion controls all other questions in a Presidential election until it is resolved.

This is particularly true in the Presidential election, because it is the President who decides who is appointed to the Supreme Court, and right now, friends, we are on the edge of the reversal of Roe v. Wade. The current vote is 5-4 in favor of Roe. A shift of 1 judge can end it, and it is fairly certain that at least 2 judges will be appointed by the next nominee. Both Justice Stevens and Ginsburg are very likely retirements, and Scalia is a possibility. If EITHER Stevens or Ginsburg are replaced with a judge that sees Roe properly, then Roe is OVER, and Abortion numbers probably drop dramatically shortly thereafter. This reality means that the next President decides the question. Plain and simple.

If the claim from the Xian Obama supporters is that other issues ought to inform our decision as well — important issues like the war, or the environment, amount of federal spending, etc.,  I could appreciate that in any other context, and I would be much less surprised by the Xian who supports Obama.

But Abortion is the primary political and moral fact in our nation. You must equivocate on either the morality of abortion or the signficance of its evil to vote for Obama at this moment in history.

It is true that it is certainly possible for McCain to pick the wrong judges. But if Obama wins, it is very clear that he will appoint 2 judges, maybe 3 who will move the Roe balance back to 6-3 or 7-2, and we’ll have another two decades of 1.3 million babies slaughtered every year.  That is 20M+ more dead babies, friends. McCain may mistakenly pick a judge, granted, but we can be sure that Obama won’t make 3 such mistakes.

So the challenge for the Obama supporter is that you have to establish how these issues can approach in ANY measure the importance of Abortion.

The War is a violation of the 6th Commandment? I don’t agree that the Bible teaches pacifism, but I will grant the point for the purposes of our discussion.

My answer: OK. Maybe it is. Lets count the dead. The War has killed 3000 american soldiers and 20000 enemy? That number of 6th Commandment violations is covered by 4 days of abortions in the US. The war dead in Iraq is not even a blip on the 6th Commandment screen in comparison to the abortion evil. (Don’t try to pin the terrorist killings of civilians in Iraq on us. That is an unjust attribution, and the Bible prohibits it.)

All the Christians I am talking about agree that abortion is murder. And yet — relatively speaking –very small numbers of Christians in history have believed that the death of combatants in a just war are prohibited by the 6th Commandment. And I imagine most Christians today would not claim that this current war is an unjust war.

What other issues are people attempting to compare to the quality of abortion when choosing a President? Race? Obama is better on race?

It is no doubt true that electing a Black President would help unify the country on matters of race. Surely it would be a step forward. But you have to ask yourself: Is the benefit worth the cost of millions of more dead babies?

The answer is simple: NO. ITS NOT WORTH THAT. I want racial integration. I want that bad. But not at that cost. I will take the live babies and figure out how to accomplish that in some other way.  (How about electing a Black pro-life President, for example).

Poverty?

I appreciate the importance of the issue and I agree that it must be a greater concern of ours. On this point I think  Americans are certainly the most generous private contributors to food relief for the poor and Christians have done some of the most important intellectual work on addressing this problem. No doubt we must care for the least of these.

But your point begs the question. Who exactly are the least of these in the US right now? The most vulnerable people in our country right are not the poor. The most vulnerable children in our country are 1.3M children in wombs who will make their way to abortion clinics this year. Hundreds in our own city. These are not vulnerable to lives in poverty, as bad as that is. They are vulnerable to death at the hands of their mothers, and homicides, protected by the full power of the State.  I would submit that we start caring for “the least of these” by first allowing them to live.

Again, I don’t think there is any real moral comparison to be made here, without a serious equivocation on the quality of the evil in American abortion.

CITY OF GOD AND CITY OF MAN

I want to address this point from MIKE: “To reflect on some of the assumptions in your post, you might run with different 20somethings than I run with, but the case of Obamamania somehow sweeping over and placing into a hypnotic trance young evangelicals who are otherwise astute and thoughtful, far overstates the case.  It’s more basic than that- the problem is that our options are so terribly limited because we live in the City of Man while longing for the City of God to come in its fullness.”

Well, I certainly agree with the despair over the City of Man v. City of God dichotomy. I don’t like it either. But I must say, a good number of these 20something Christians appear to be gushing over Obama, and when I ask them to identify any substance that motivates them, I get very little real response.

I wonder if Jeff’s “secret chord” point is not spot on: Many Xians appear to be attracted to Obama because of his charisma more than anything else. I hate to say it, but I just don’t see the sort of sober evaluation of him that is called for by a Christian understanding of human nature. Those on the right who reflexively support whatever Republican that comes along have the same question to answer, or course. But I am not addressing them at the moment.

Obamamania and Christians: I just don’t get it

PLEASE NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED

You may access it here:
http://www.upfromfundamentalism.com/2008/07/obamamania-and-christians-i-just-dont-get-it/

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The American political romance over Democrat Presidential nominee Barack Obama is well known, of course.  He is a fabulous speaker. He is inspirational. The American press loves him. And he has brought a group of voters to the polls that have historically almost never showed up to vote — the 18-25 year old. He currently leads most major American popular polls by at least a few points.

And we cannot hold it against the Germans when they gush over him. He tells them what they want to hear: American culture is not superior to European culture. In fact, its inferior. And the crowds go wild.

But one thing I cannot understand, and no one has ever adequately explained, is how a large group of otherwise sensible, serious, and astute evangelical Christians have totally bought into Obamamania. I just don’t get it. Fundamentally for me, the argument begins and ends with his position on Abortion — the most important political issue of our time. But what I really want to get at is what I find very odd, and frankly, a bit disturbing: the willingness of my 20something Christian friends to put their faith in any politician in the way that many Christians I know have done over Obama. At first blush, at least, I can’t remember a less reflective placement of faith in a politician by Christians in my lifetime.

This post is meant to start a discussion with this group of people. I want to understand the phenomena. I want someone to adequately defend it.  I want to hear someone in this group make the case and defend it responsibly. I don’t want a bunch of platitudes that we are used to hearing from Obama himself. I want someone to persuade me that this group of people haven’t been just buffaloed by a charismatic good looking guy who is an exceptional speaker. Someone make the case how a serious Christian can seriously support this guy for leadership of the US.

Help Zion Respond to the Fire

Zion Church wants to thank all of you for your interest in helping with the rebuilding project.  There are three ways you can contribute. 

1. Mission to North America – Disaster Response, Presbyterian Church in America is processing donations on behalf of Zion.  Tax-deductible donations can be made through their web site.
2. If you are in Lincoln, Cornhusker Bank has set up a “Fire Recovery Account” for Zion.  You can deposit a gift to the “Fire Recovery Account” at any Cornhusker Bank location.  The ability to make an on-line deposit into this account will be available shortly.
3. Checks can be sent directly to the Zion Church office.  Please make the check out to Zion Church and write “Fire Recovery Account” on the memo line.

All gifts are tax-deductible.If you have any questions, please contact Rev. Tobey Brockman, Associate Pastor at 402.476.2524.

Thank you for your generosity and support.

Beauty for Ashes

 

Take Heart Zion, Thy God Reigneth

What is Normative Church Life?

Gary Begins:

The initial discussion I want to have is a discussion that I was having with my friend Jode, regarding what ordinary church life should look like.

Let me start the discussion with a couple of observations. First, as a doctrinal matter, the reformed wing of the church has generally approached this question systematically, in that it attempts to glean from the Bible the essentials of Christian church life, and set those as the benchmarks for healthy church living. In reformed history, those essentials have been the following: (1) the orthodox preaching and teaching of the Word; (2) the right administration of the sacraments; and (3) the faithful exercise of Church discipline. This view has essentially held that if these three aspects are present, then what you are doing is “church.”

Now, our discussion was not really a discussion about the systematic structural essentials of Church. Jode, you can recast the discussion as you like, as I know you will. But as I view it, the discussion we were having was more about what sort of behavior or action, or qualities characterize a healthy church. For example, a healthy church presumably includes an environment characterized by personal discipleship taking place. Presumably at such churches, non-Christians come to know Christ. But how much, and how many? What is it supposed to look like? And how are we to know that a particular view about this is correct? These are the questions I am interested in at the moment.

Jode:

Let me follow Gary and hope to narrow our question to make it a little more manageable. I want to divide this into two separate areas; 1. What is normal (commonplace) as evidence of a church? 2. What are the essential characteristics of a believer who has a healthy spiritual life as commonplace engaged in a community of believers who share a healthy spiritual life?

1. What is commonplace as evidence of a church? I see this as a category of questions which are designed to test or determine that what I am observing is actually a church. This is the idea of a third party observer standing back and looking for evidences which will indicate whether or not what he sees is indeed a church…

A. For example I may expect that a steeple is a criteria of evidence of a church. I may drive through a neighborhood looking for buildings with steeples if I was searching for a church. If I thought a church must be a place where I confess my sins then I would include that criteria when I was attempting to find a church. If I thought that a church should only love people and never condemn others then that is a criteria that would guide me.

i. I believe http://waynestead.wordpress.com/2007/02/09/a-new-revolution-part-2/ this is (Wayne’s Blog and some Village Church dialogue) a good example of the problem of criteria and confusion in current times. I will warn you that this is a long read…..

B. I believe that all criteria for determining what qualifies as evidence of a church is exclusively defined by the scripture. The example of the nation of Israel, the example of the church in the new testament and the Commandments of God all play a roll in providing us with a criteria. This requires that we first pour through our Bible looking for these qualifying evidences – which there are many.

i. This is a difficult process because these seem to come in two categories; 1 . Examples by a group of people who are considered faithful to the community of God and 2. Stuff we are told is true of a church.

a. Example one would include things like Acts 2. They read the Bible together, they prayed together, they celebrated the sacraments together and praised. Or we may find examples in the nation of Israel with things like the temple, priests, festivals, praise, etc…

b . Example two is in regards to explicit instructions like the ones we may find in 1 Peter 5:2-3

“Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.”

In this case the criteria derives directly from instructions and there are dozens if not hundreds of examples in the new testament.

C. I believe by way of implication that any criteria NOT derived from the scripture is a false positive. If we somehow have come upon a criteria for church which was gained from worldly experience or academic instruction or common sense then we are off track.

i. An example I can personally recall is the use of employing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a method for determining who would be involved in church leadership. This method was perceived as being very spiritual and would provide insight into men when in reality it is only naturalism parading as religion.

2. What are the essential characteristics of a believer who has a healthy spiritual life as commonplace engaged in a community of believers who share a healthy spiritual life? This is a long and complex question but I believe there are four pieces to it. In my mind it must contain all four pieces or something is missing. Piece number one is the fact that there are essential characteristics to being a Believer in Jesus Christ. Number two – these essential characteristics lead to a healthy spiritual life (please note that I DO NOT mean perfect). Number three is that I see this healthy spiritual life becoming commonplace for a believer as they mature in Christ. Number four – this commonplace healthy spiritual life is dependent on the fact that in needs others and those other people need the healthy spiritual life (this is recursive).

A. I see this second piece as instructive and introspective. This is about who I am becoming in Christ and where my spiritual life is going.

B. I would like to elaborate more on this point….. But it is late and I am really tired.

3. A note on normal…. Later when I am awake.