i came across something interesting in my reading this morning…

then they sent to Him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to catch Him in His words.

when they had come, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, we know that You are true, and care about no one; for You do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth.

is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’

Mark 12:13-14

i will say this, the pharisees were bold. bold and very, very mistaken.

can you imagine saying to Jesus Christ ‘we know that You care about no one‘?

these were men who saw His miracles. men who heard Jesus teach week after week. men who were in the presence of God come in human flesh. and here, days before His crucifixion, they come to Him and say that He cares for no one because instead He teaches the way of God.

it’s election season.

election season is always a little weird for Christians because there’s always just a lot of argument. who to vote for, what to vote for, how involved to get, which issues ‘matter’ and why we choose the things we do, are always hotly debated in the media, on blogs, in conversations.

and each year, it seems like at least some of us start adopting the attitude of the pharisees: that teaching and living the way of God in truth is incompatible with caring for people. that the teachings of the Bible lead to an attitude of CARElessness.

we find both sides of any given ‘Christian’ political issue using this reasoning.

on the one hand, you have people that throw out God’s love because the message of God in a given proposition or measure or candidate is that He is angry and full of wrath. the love and grace of God get set aside while this group harangues their opponents with the ‘truth’ of coming judgment and Divine anger. this leads to the overall message of ‘you’re not welcome in God’s presence.’

the other side is quick to point out this lack of love and care. their response is to throw out the teachings of the Word and simply embrace a ‘live-and-let-live’ ideology. ‘yes, the Bible might say that, but what is more important is to just love.’ this leads to a message that says, ‘it doesn’t really matter what we say or do or believe, as long as we get along, that’s what God really wants.’

what Jesus illustrates in this famous chapter is that our God is a God of loving truth. a truth that could definitively look a person in the eye and say, ‘go and sin no more,’ coupled with a love that extended to lepers, children, widows, gentiles, soldiers, adulterers and pharisees.

a truth that defined sin and a love that forgave it.

neither of these elements can be discounted.

truth without love is not gracious.

love without truth is not meaningful.

we are to speak (and live) the truth in love.

love and truth. the means and the message.

i’m tired of arguing about issues with other Christians. aren’t you?

it’s election season. an outfit called Glassbooth will ‘tell’ you which candidate aligns with you on certain hot-button issues.

as always, if you’re even more than a little right of center they brand you a libertarian. that’s because they don’t ask the right questions.

let me emphatically state that i am NOT a libertarian. not at all.

however, it’s interesting to see the read out.

how do you line up?

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i know that lots of us don’t want to get that political.

and i know that a lot of we younger folks don’t cognitavely remember our Reagan years.

but this was a very interesting 10 minutes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PyZpsW_xD8[/youtube]

HT – mr. munoz

Ban on Political Endorsements by Pastors Targeted

By Peter Slevin

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 8, 2008; Page A03

CHICAGO — Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

read the rest here

what do you guys think about this?

i understand what they’re trying to do, but i worry about the way Jesus Christ might be represented in this attitude.

give me an opinion or two.

if i’m honest, i’m just a little heavy-hearted today. it seems that no matter where you go you can’t escape the anger and hostility and hatred against our president that is currently the national pastime.

it’s everywhere. it’s in headlines and on the front of magazines. it’s in movie trailers and commentary. it’s ingrained in our conversation and our thinking. and that is terrible.

not because we’re not allowed to have ‘opinions.’ we can and do. that’s one of the hundreds of reasons america is the greatest country in the world.

but the problem with our ‘opinions’ is that we almost always think more of ourselves than we should and then we start believing that we’re entitled to think and to say anything that we want about other people.

i don’t want to get into a huge, drawn out post. i really don’t.

instead, i’d like anyone reading this to pause and consider this:

can you imagine what it would feel like to be george bush? to be one of his family members?

can you imagine what it would feel like to have people saying the things that are said about him to your wife? or to your husband?

can you imagine what it would be like to have your entire life filmed and photographed and catalogued and then for the entire world to sit in the comfort of their homes and judge whether they think what you’ve done today is acceptable or not?

i think it’s safe to say that most of my readers are Christians. that’s great. we’re moving into an election month and i’ve found myself complaining. and generalizing. and speaking negatively. and though we’re free to do so in america, i don’t think that those attitudes are God’s highest and best for our lives.

today i was reminded of this:

1 Timothy 2:1-2 – Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. giving of thanks be made for all men,

you don’t have to agree with our president.

you don’t even have to ‘like’ him.

you don’t have to support every decision he makes.

but, as Christians, as people who are citizens of God’s Kingdom, we need to pray for our president and our government.

and we need to complain less.

and we need to control our tongues.

let’s pray for our leaders today.

blessings.

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i don’t watch the news hardly at all. for one, we don’t have our tv hooked up to anything but our glorious dvd player.

for two, the news doesn’t play fair…and that’s lame.

do you think this will get any attention?

i’m guessing everyone will be too busy hassling someone else’s daughter…

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i know, i know, most of you reading this aren’t really into political posts, but i thought this article had some remarkably interesting thoughts.

(don’t worry, there’s no spoilers)

enjoy.

WHAT BUSH AND BATMAN HAVE IN COMMON

By ANDREW KLAVAN
July 25, 2008; Page A15

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a “W.”

There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

“The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror — films like “In The Valley of Elah,” “Rendition” and “Redacted” — which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense — values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right — only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like “300,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Narnia,” “Spiderman 3″ and now “The Dark Knight”?

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of “The Dark Knight” itself: Doing what’s right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They’re wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don’t always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness.

[ read the rest of the article here ]

any thoughts?

have you felt it yet?

if you work at a church in this state, i’m guessing you have. emails, calls, mailers, volunteers and others, all pressuring the evangelical community to get out and vote against the gay-marriage amendment to California’s constitution.

and, it’s only the beginning.

just this week we were visited, and then called the next day, by an organization that suggests you take a portion of a sunday morning service and ‘encourage’ people to register as permanent absentee and to vote against the recent ruling from the state’s supreme court (i say ‘encourage’ because having everyone take a form and a pen and having ushers walk around asking people to finish said form seems less like encouragement and more like coercion to me…).

now, as most of you know, i am a conservative. politically, economically, international relationally, spiritually (in the literal-inspiration-of-God’s-word sense)…and my beliefs are important to me. i loved arguing about them while i was studying political science in college (not so much anymore). i love having a reason for the things i believe.

so let’s talk about some things i believe:

- i believe that God defines marriage as 1 man and 1 woman and that He did so all the way back in the garden of eden, making marriage the first institution God established.
- i believe that Christians should vote. we live in the greatest country in the world with the greatest freedoms in the world. we should not take for granted the blessings we enjoy in america.
- i believe that some Christians should get involved (more than voting) in politics. i say ‘some’ because i believe that God will guide some to political activism and He will guide others not to political activism. God will call some to be like daniel and others to be like abraham.

interestingly, i also believe:

- we have a short amount of time to do the things God asks each of us to do.
- winning a soul for Christ is more effective than writing legislation.
- preaching redemption and grace from the pulpit is better than preaching political or social activism.

i mean, people are up in arms. to many this seems to be the end-all-be-all fight of the eon. much more-so than other issues…like when we were threatened with losing the right to spank our kids.

i guess i’m just thinking about it this way; what if, on the sunday that we decided to spend a bunch of time haranguing the gay-marriage amendment from the pulpit, someone had brought a homosexual family member to hear about Jesus?

what if someone in my congregation is struggling with the sin of homosexuality?

should the message they receive on sunday morning be about absentee ballots and why it’s ‘us versus them,’ or should they hear that Jesus Christ is mercy, is grace, is sufficient to free mankind from the bondage of sin?

what if, instead of name-calling and categorizing, we talked about God’s plan for salvation and His desire to change lives? what if, instead of soundbytes, we talked about how God’s grace is enough to forgive any sin.

any sin. even the ones that we somehow convince ourselves are ‘worse’ than the rest.

because, yes, God says homosexuality is sin, just like drunkenness, anger, strife, groundless divorce and the rest.

God also said that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. and now our Maker and Savior extend to us loving-kindness. God wields all of time and space as a backdrop for the drama of redemption, His effort to reveal His love to you and to me.

it’s important to act on what we believe. Christians should exercise their freedom and vote against things that conflict with our values. i mean, we should love who God loves (everyone) and we should avoid what God wants us to avoid. we should be teaching each other the whole of God’s word, because when we do then He works out our behavior, our values, our convictions, our stances. and that affords us the opportunity to be known for Who we’re for, NOT what we’re against.

as we close, i was thinking about a simple illustration:

if you walk up to me and apply pressure by pushing me then i have 2 options; to either fall over or to push back. but, if you walk up to me and embrace me then i won’t fall and i won’t need to fight.

this isn’t about writing off sinfulness. it’s not about letting society deteriorate. it’s about living the Christian life in a way that demonstrates the life-changing power of God’s salvation that is freely available to every man, woman and child on this planet. that is what will changes lives, not a law.

the God of the universe is madly in love with us.

blessings and maranatha

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if you could pick anyone (other than God or Jesus Christ) to be president, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be?

(i know, not a great graphic…but i didn’t make it…so…sorry)

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right now i’m a conduit through which an already widely-posted article will flow.

HT: this guy

as Barack Obama found out last week, when you run for president you can’t even get away with being a lousy giver to charity. After Mr. and Mrs. Obama released their tax returns, the press quickly noticed that, between 2000 and 2004, they gave less than one percent of their income to charity, far lower than the national average. Their giving rose to a laudable five percent in 2005 and six percent in 2006…

According to an Obama spokesman, the couple’s miserly charity until 2005 “was as generous as they could be at the time,” given their personal expenses. In other words, despite an annual average income over the period of about $244,000, they simply could not afford to give anything meaningful.

The Obamas got rich in 2005. Their income increased sevenfold from 2004 to 2005, mostly because of Mr. Obama’s book royalties, and stayed very high in 2006 for the same reason. In 2006, another wealthy political couple with significant book royalties was Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, who had a combined income of $8.8 million, largely due to Mrs. Cheney’s books and the couple’s investment income. Just how much did the Cheneys give to charity from their bonanza? A measly 78 percent of their income, or $6.9 million. (No, that is not a misprint.) [emphasis added]

one word: gnarly.

read the rest here