politics: the game

I haven't paid significant attention to politics as of late, so this isn't targeted to anyone in particular. I am sure there are plenty of people in politics who are fully committed to God and will not budge on their morals or ethics, so this isn't a complete indictment on everyone in the system. It is merely an observation of the contrast between the life we should live and the actions some see as necessary in politics.

Most American politicians claim some flavor of Christianity to accept portions of some version of the Christian Bible as God-breathed. Certainly there is a wide range of beliefs within this group Christian politicians, but I believe that most of them are largely genuine in their stated beliefs. If you threw out the politicians who claim non-Christian religions or no religion and also those disingenuous about their claimed beliefs, I believe that a strong majority would still be people who believed in Christ as their Savior. It is therefore very unfortunate that the political game is so opposite what Scripture teaches. If most of the political players accept Scripture on some level, and a large percentage of the electorate does as well, how could we end up with a system that encourages such abhorrent behavior?

One politician I will mention because he has dropped out of the presidential race, and because I was not strongly for or against his campaign, is Tim Pawlenty. When he dropped out of the race a few weeks ago something I read in a few places was that he was too much of a "good guy" who wouldn't go for the jugular enough. I read further that this works in some election cycles, but apparently not in this one. While I know that a lot of the explanations for why things happen in politics are storylines invented to sell news, it does not say much for the electorate if the reason some people turned from Pawlenty was because he didn't have enough bloodlust.

I think the Pawlenty storyline illustrates my point fairly well. Simply put, the strategies and games that politicians of all political stripes play, whether they feel they have to or not, are anti-Scriptural. This is no shock to anyone, I am sure, but what gives me pause is how easily the behavior is rationalized by those who support that specific candidate. It's unconscionable when a political opponent does X sleazy thing, but when it's someone I agree with then there is an excusable reason for it, or it's a personality quirk, or it's a personal matter, or...

The truth be told, a Christian who completely follows Scripture does not bend the truth to suit a need. A Christian who completely follows Scripture does not craft his or her belief system for maximum political gains. A Christian who completely follows Scripture does not grandstand. A Christian who completely follows Scripture does not game the system for their own personal gain, whether it be financial (pay for play) or political (gerrymandering). A Christian who completely follows Scripture does not sell hate to get elected or push an agenda. I know there isn't a person alive who completely follows Scripture, but if there were that person would not be at all compatible with our current political system.

I would assert that it is far better to lose a political election to a scumbag opponent than it is to win using questionable means. I don't think that many people would disagree with that statement, but I again think that most would rationalize or write off political games as a necessary evil to keep even worse people from getting elected. So, I would assert once more that it is far better to lose a political election to a scumbag than to win it through questionable means.

I cannot hold someone who does not accept Scripture to the standard of Scripture, but I can hold those who claim Christ to Scripture. A Christian has to be a different kind of politician. I would like to conclude this with a passage from 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul is writing to the Corinthian church about handling legal disputes internally. Certainly, if read outside the context of a legal dispute as I am doing, I have failed this passage myself. Even so, imagine if Paul were writing about a political debate rather than a legal argument. I am sure he would still ask, "Why not rather be wronged?"

"Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother goes to law against another--and this in front of unbelievers! The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?"- 1 Corinthians 6:4-9a

politics: 9/11

Today is the ten-year anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. It is one of those events where you know where you were when you heard the news, which for the majority of people in the East and Midwest was probably work or school because it was business hours on a weekday. Feel free to share what you were doing when you found out or other related memories in the comments. My greatest memory of that time was that for a short period there was a bit less political divisiveness in the country.

Something that I have noted in the time since is that this incident was one that has a remarkable ability to reaffirm to people what they already believed about whatever topics involved. Somehow, both people who think Islam is inherently peaceful and inherently violent find evidence for their worldview in 9/11. People who think the U.S. should take a more active role or less active role against rogue states both find evidence to support their worldview in 9/11. Some see the event as an indictment of the Western lifestyle and others see it as proof that our freedoms are so great we're worth attacking for them. It's telling that one of the big conspiracies from the past decade is that the government was behind the 9/11 attacks. If I deep down want to hate the government why not invent some blame for one of the most significant events in recent history?

Maybe some of the arguments that use 9/11 as an illustration are valid. Most are probably just an excuse to trumpet a viewpoint. I would guess that all miss the gravity of the sacrifice that so many people experienced. I wonder how I would want the day honored if I had lost a loved one in the attack.

politics: alienable rights

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."- The Declaration of Independence

Typically, if a writer quotes one of the Founding Fathers or founding documents of this great nation the purpose is to prove that the Founding Fathers in their infinite wisdom agreed with whatever point the author is trying to make. I have seen this done many times by people on the Right and on the Left in the political arena, and I have also seen it done by pundits, preachers, non-profits, and anyone else who is selling an opinion.

I have a different question for Christians, though. Why do we put the writings and opinions of fallible people nearly on par with Scripture, even if they helped found one of the greatest nations ever established? Patriotism is good when it involves paying honor, respect, and obligation due to our nation as the one under which God placed us. It is bad when our love of the nation or certain national ideals is in conflict with Scripture.

While I love my country and believe it is the greatest ever established (possibly second greatest to David's Israel) on this earth, I also acknowledge that its founding principles are not all Biblical. As a Christ-follower before I am an American, I have to refuse any American principles that contradict Christian principles.

In this case, the sentence above from the Declaration of Independence describes very accurately the underlying philosophy of our nation that all men are created equal and that certain rights are unalienable. The first part about all men being created equal is very Biblical (Gal 3:28). Unfortunately, that is where the Biblical agreement ends. The second part about unalienable rights is contradicted many places in Scripture as illustrated below.

The following passage is regarding the rights to life and the pursuit of happiness. The rich man had neither the right to live beyond his appointed time nor the right to pursue happiness in the way he saw fit.

"Then [Jesus] said to them, 'Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' And he told them this parable: 'The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, "What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops." Then he said, "This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.'" But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself ?" This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.'"- Luke 12:15-21

Jesus also more explicitly demanded that His followers relinquish their right to life in the following passage.

"Then [Jesus] said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?'"- Luke 9:23-25

Another passage regarding our non-existent right to life is from Psalm 44. Paul quoted this in Romans 8 to essentially say that we might face death, but even that cannot separate us from the love of God.

"Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness. If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart? Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."- Psalms 44:18-22

This next passage is regarding liberty. There is no such thing. We are either slaves to sin and death or slaves to righteousness and God. The only true Christian freedom is freedom from sin rather than freedom from dictatorial authority.

"What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness."- Romans 6:15-18

A proper response to the previous passage may be that liberty in a political sense is different than liberty in a spiritual sense. Even if this is the case, which is not a position that I hold, we don't have the inherent right to political freedom either. This passage should also offer some discomfort for those of us who believe that some revolutions have occurred for good rather than evil.

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor."- Romans 13:1-7

Regarding the pursuit of happiness, is there anyone who truly reads the Bible with the intent of understanding it rather than cherry-picking verses who actually believes that pursuing happiness is a Christian right? Paul's following words to Timothy regarding people who are "lovers of themselves" and "lovers of pleasure" should dispel that notion if anyone actually has it.

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."- 2 Timothy 3:1-5

Finally, James hit on all three of these inalienable rights in the following passage. God has the right to, and may, take our lives tomorrow. We do not have the liberty to stake out our long-term plans apart from God, especially as it relates to fulfilling our wants.

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"- James 4:13-15

Seriously, this is something that I could do for days with passages from all of the major sections of Scripture if I was willing to commit the time to do it. There is no shortage of Bible passages that imply or outright state that these unalienable rights are very alienable for the sincere Christian.

I feel compelled to restate my point in this. I am not attempting to denigrate the great nation to which I owe so much. I am attempting to establish that the Founding Fathers were entirely capable of contradicting Scripture, and so nothing they said should be considered to carry equal weight with Scripture. On occasion we will have to make the choice whether we will accept national and cultural philosophies as our own worldviews even when they contradict Scripture. For my worldview, God's Word has to trump all else.

cute

I mentioned not long ago that a lot of words have different meanings to men and women. I don't have a good way of judging how well this applies to all men and women, but one word that has stuck out to me, especially when I was growing up, is "cute." It is completely possible that I am alone on this, but that word has devalued a lot of compliments in my life. The following example uses my grandmother as an example, and I have chosen to use this since she has passed and so will not read this some day in the future with embarrassment.

I like to share things that I think are funny with others. So, if I come across something I think is genuinely funny I like to share it. More than once when I was at my grandparents' house I read some joke I liked out of a Reader's Digest to my grandmother, to which her response was to say it was cute. It wasn't a huge deal because I knew it was supposed to be a compliment, but that was never the response I wanted.

I think "cute" is a go-to generic compliment for a lot of women because the word implies the sort of thing a lot of women want to be or that they want to own. In my life I've heard a lot of women say things in the vein of, "You look cute in those earrings," or "Those shoes are so cute," or "You have a cute baby," or "You two look cute together." In most contexts; though, the word is feminine. I haven't heard many men use the same sort of compliments, and it sticks out like a sore thumb when a man actually does say something like that.

The real problem is that a compliment is only effective if it makes the recipient feel how he or she wants to feel about himself or herself. Giving a man who would prefer to be masculine feminine compliments or a woman who would prefer to be feminine masculine compliments drains the value from those compliments.

In thinking through this I realized that I do not know which compliments men give that aren't really compliments to women. Is there a reverse version of "cute" that I am not aware of? I should probably learn before I start giving Golden or CD compliments that mean less than I think they do.

temptation

Recent news regarding research performed at the USC Marshall School of Business indicates that positive reinforcement is more effective at getting people to avoid temptation than guilt. It doesn't sound like the research was extremely thorough, but the conclusions make a lot of sense to me.

An example of this that was mentioned in the story dealt with people's ability to resist eating cake. Three different groups of people were left in a room individually with a piece of cake and told they that they could eat it if they wanted to. One group was informed that they should contemplate their pride at resisting this temptation, one group was informed that they should contemplate their shame at eating the cake, and one group was the control group who did not receive positive or negative reinforcement. The group of people who were told to contemplate their pride at resisting temptation did better than the other groups, especially the one told to focus on shame.

The article gives three reasons why guilt is ineffective.

1. Guilt focuses thoughts on the temptation rather than on self-control. If you're thinking a lot about the object of your temptation you are more likely to cave to the temptation.
2. Guilt makes you feel bad in general, and this damages your resolve to fight the temptation.
3. Guilt makes the tempting thing seem more pleasurable, and therefore makes it more difficult to resist.

This aligns well with how I have learned that you are supposed to guide small children to right and wrong. For example, rather than yelling at your kids not to run inside, it is better to tell them that they should walk. This concept is very difficult for me to implement as a parent because I don't always know what behavior I want in my kids as quickly as what behavior I don't want. This concept goes further than parenting; though, and seems like it is very relevant to addictions.

I have never been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but if the movies are to be believed, people who share with the group tend to open with a positive: "Hi, my name is Dust and I am an alcoholic. I have been alcohol-free for seven months." While it may sound like a downer, the focus is on acceptance within the group despite your weaknesses, and pride in the success of resisting temptation for a period of time. Obviously, there is more to Alcoholics Anonymous than this, but if the meetings consisted merely of visiting speakers berating them for their weaknesses instead of allowing people to think about their successes I'd bet it would be far less successful at what it does.

I think this points to an area where much of the church is ineffective. The churches that I am used to are good about doling out the guilt for things that are wrong. I have started asking myself the last few years whether this truly does any good, though. Certainly sin should be called sin, but if spiritual nagging makes people more apt to fall to temptation, then there has to be a more effective way of helping people get out of their addictions. Of course it is through God's strength that we have freedom from sin, but we are to help bear each others burdens (Gal 6:1-2). If that is the case, then we have a responsibility to assist in the most effective way we know how.

So, if you are helping someone avoid temptation how would you go about doing it? Here are the steps I would follow.

• Pray.
• Praise successes.
• Maintain humility throughout the process (Gal 6:3).
• Praise successes.
• Encourage the person to visualize success and imagine how good it will feel to overcome than the temptation.
• Praise successes.
• Analyze failures to see what went wrong, but don't dwell on them.
• Praise successes.
• Encourage the person to listen for the Spirit's guidance (Gal 5:16).
• Praise successes.

holocaust stories

We are going through The Hiding Place in our Sunday morning class at church right now. It is a very powerful and well-thought-out book, and so it is a good choice. I don't think I am the intended audience, though. This got me to thinking about who is the audience for a story about the Holocaust.

Several people close to me have gone through periods where they were strongly interested in the Holocaust. I have no intent of invalidating that interest, but I do not personally understand it. My reaction to these sorts of stories is due to the fact that it is sadness and loss piled onto more sadness and loss. Even when the story has a happy ending I feel exhausted by that point. I do have to admit that there are some sad stories I am drawn to. Holocaust stories are simply not among them.

I don't want to imply that my perspective on this is the one that is the most valid, though. If you have an interest in Holocaust stories or think you may have some insight into their draw leave a comment. I'd love to get a fresh perspective.

metaphor in toy story 3

There are spoilers in this post from Toy Story 3. My assumption is that at this point you will have seen the movie or you won't care if part of the movie is spoiled. This is a heads up nonetheless.

Over the last nine months or so I have watched Toy Story 3 countless times with the kids. After seeing it so many times, I have come to the conclusion that it is meant on some level to be a metaphor for Old Testament Israel or Judah, which does make some sense if there is near the Jewish influence in modern media that a lot of people believe there is.

By my interpretation Woody is a prophet, akin to Isaiah or Jeremiah. Also, Andy is God, Buzz represents the nation's ruler, the rest of Andy's toys represent the nation, and the kids at daycare represent other nations' false gods. One representation that I think is intentional, but that I am less sure of, is Lotso Hugging Bear as Satan.

As the story is introduced the toys (the people of the nation) are trying to find ways to get Andy's (God's) attention. This is because they (the nation) have needs that aren't getting met and they feel like Andy (God) is ignoring them. Events occur to exacerbate that feeling, and so all of the toys (the nation) except Woody (the prophet) want to turn their back on Andy (God) and stay at Sunnyside Daycare with all of the younger kids (false gods) until they understand the implications of their decision. Buzz (the king) ultimately makes the decision that the toys (the nation) are not Andy's (God's) any more in the face of Woody's (the prophet's) argument that they will always be Andy's (God's).

Lotso (Satan) makes the children in the Caterpillar room (false gods) sound like an appealing option, then traps them in their decision to stay with the children (false gods). The children (false gods) mistreat the toys (the nation), but the toys (the nation) are stuck because they have forsaken Andy (God). In the process, Lotso (Satan) corrupts Buzz (the king) who in turn holds the toys (the nation) hostage.

Woody (the prophet) appears with information from the outside and hope for freedom. He also has information on Lotso (Satan) that he is a fallen toy (demon) because of what happened between him and his kid (God). The toys (the nation) agree that Woody is right (repent) and decide to attempt to escape the daycare (false gods) and return to Andy (God). During this time Buzz goes through his own transformation (repentance) process.

Toward the end, the toys (the nation) are almost condemned to destruction at the dump (Hell) as Lotso (Satan) taunts them with the question, "Where's your kid (God) now?" While the concept of Hell is more New Testament and Christian than Old Testament and Jewish, it could also represent destruction at the hands of the Assyrians or Babylonians. Regardless, the toys are ultimately saved.

The metaphor is not perfect, and so there are a lot of holes you could poke in my theory if you wanted. For example, once you introduce Bonnie you are introducing polytheism, which is stridently inconsistent with Old Testament theology. While the kids in the Caterpillar room are representative of false gods, what about the kids in the Butterfly room? If you follow the metaphor too strictly, it sounds like Ken and Barbie stayed with the false gods, and this wasn't portrayed as a bad thing. Perhaps most importantly, Andy (God) plays only a very minor role in ultimately assisting the toys.

I understand that you can make almost any story fit into any structure you want to illustrate whatever point, but I have to believe that at least one of the writers was attempting to implement either a Christian or Jewish perspective into the framework of the story by including a series of related Old Testament themes. That's what it looks like to me at least.