No Chains on Me…

Lets try a series on for size. This one promises to be scattered due to the fact that it is 2:30 in the morning and I have a lot that I want to lay as base-work for this series.  

I like the idea of communism at the basic level. This is not to say that I have a good grasp of the ideology of it as a whole, I’m going to be researching some of that for this series. However, the idea that all work together for the common good, which then in turn will benefit you, is a very, oddly enough, Christian idea. All should pitch in to make a better living for all. Community.

Capitalism, on the other hand and again oddly enough, is built upon a very non-Christian idea: Work for the good of yourself, which in turn should benefit society. Self-centered vs. others-centered. Here in America, it is well known that we hail capitalism and the free-market system as the solution to the worlds problems. But is it a system worthy of the followers of Christ?

Capitalism works, or has worked very well in the past for one reason in my opinion: It is a system designed to work on the principal that man is selfish. Its the perfect system for a world of sinful, selfish people.

After an entire night of talking over a wide variety of very interesting subjects with my new housemate, James, I have thought through something else as well. Only one thing was necessary for a Biblically historical account of a “Fall” to make sense: the entrance of selfishness into Man’s desires. A change from desiring the good for either someone else or for all others before one’s self, to a desiring of the betterment of one’s self above all others. This single change in perspective, in my opinion, can account for all sin or evil in the world, aside from things like natural disaster and the like, which, even so, may be attributable to man’s poor management and use of the earth. Another topic for another time.

Back to the topic at hand, communism has failed historically because ultimately, someone, somewhere gets the idea that this system is exploitable for his/her own good. Because of this, the people who are then taken advantage of, suffer miserably under the hand of tyranny. Then dissent leads to revolution and the downfall of a system. All stemming, again only in my opinion, from selfishness.

So what is the solution? Not so fast, we’ve barely begun! And its getting near 3. But the answer is anarchy…. Not yet More to follow.

Meanwhile, you can all read Animal Farm, a decent, semi-humorous novel/commentary on communism in what most resembles the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Its a shorter read, although it is a book. See you all soon.

The debate tonight was not overwhelmingly successful for either candidate. I did feel that Obama made a much better showing than McCain did though. To those who say Obama only works through a teleprompter, I think he was excellent this evening running free-style Regardless of my stand on politics, Obama holds almost every position that I would align with on the topics that were spoken on tonight, so well done to him on his responses and defense.

More about Palin, more serious this time, is the recent interviews with CBS’s Katie Couric and ABC’s Charles Gibson are pretty frightening when thinking about how close this woman will be to running this country if McCain, in all likelihood, does not complete his full term. I agree, some of these interviews are very direct, but I feel as though the woman running as the country’s number two should be able to handle it or at least come up with competent, even coherent answers. Jack Cafferty voices the concerns well on CNN. All I can say, if she doesn’t completely tank McCain’s campaign run, it’ll be a miracle. So much for the wonder-woman, “national love affair.”

The brief, semi-satirical letter below is a great take on the new proposition coming off the line from a government that doesn’t know how to control its spending habits. In so many interviews about the major economic crash that happened a week ago now, the question continues to come up: Who’s fault is this? If we are looking at a problem of too much money being given to people who can’t pay it back (as it seems the issue continually brought up is outrageous mortgage programs carried on by many of our national banks), we need look no farther than our government. The amount that our spending and debt has grown over the past eight years has been stagering. What is interesting is that the last time our national debt, decreased was during the Clinton administration (even though it wasn’t a whole lot). Bush’s administration has increased the debt by a massive increase in spending while at the same time the GDP has dropped through the floor. Some quick stats:

That said, the letter following is not actually as funny as it sounds. In fact, this proposal HAS been made by Sec. Paulson, to use $700 BILLION dollars (coming from where?) to help out our financial system that is already in ruins. What is so incredibly scary about this, is that Paulson and those seeking to enact this measure are asking for the money with no strings, no questions, and no accountability. You think I’m joking? You can read the proposal for yourself if you like. Some highlights are:

Necessary Actions.–The Secretary [Paulson] is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

…

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

…

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Does that make sense to ANYONE? Is anyone even a little suspicious of the need for that non-reviewable clause? Paulson and others, from what I gather claim that it is for the expediency of action needed to correct the financial disaster we are currently undergoing.

photo by Tim Davis

Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship
with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country
has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of
US$800 billion. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be
most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you
may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation
movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the
funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds
in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under
surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a
reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the
funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund
account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission
for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond
with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to
protect the funds.

Regards
Mr. Paulson
_

Check out Tim Davis’ excellent series, My Life in Politics.

[From Spam of the Day. Or Not.]

This has got to be one of the coolest sites ever. http://www.americathegiftshop.com/ Which is displaying the artwork of Philip Toledano. It’s amazing the things that he captures as being the memoirs of what has become the exports of our nation.

Most of you know I’m not a big fan of government or politics in general. So I pretty much find this amazing

This is a perspective I’ve really tried to be a proponent of when it comes to theology and the Bible. And, believe it or not, this comes out of Princeton… interestingly enough.

For the Christian church, the Bible is the very Word of God. Mysteriously, Jesus Christ rules his church through the frail and feeble practice of human reading. Here, alongside all other Christian convictions, we encounter “the foolishness of God” (1 Corinthians 1:25). In recent centuries, the temptation for the church has been to shield itself from this foolishness through the construction of elaborate edifices around Scripture: hermeneutical theory, historical-critical tools, theories of inspiration, dogmatic systems, etc. All of these are right and necessary, but it needs to be emphasized continually that the presence of these structures around Scripture does not itself constitute a faithful hearing of the Bible. Proper exegesis is theological, attentive to the living and active Word of God, eager to hear and obey the summons of him whose voice is like “the roar of many waters” (Revelation 1:15).

Maybe more to come…

Well its been a wild weekend for me, to some degree, on the religious and philosophical front. Nothing life-changing, but plenty of content contained within. Some time spent working on work stuff, on and off throughout the day (and late into the evening Some family friends came over for dinner on Saturday which was nice, but we ended up got our good ole fashion liberal hating on, to remind us, once again, that the liberals are the ones doing entirely all of the hating. Wait, what? Yes… believe it or not, once again I find, to my unexpected horror, that I am still with the “dark side of the force” in politics, religion, philosophy. Good to know.

Its a remarkable trend on both sides to see the other side the one entirely in the wrong, with no allowable crossover (for surely that is compromising and polluting THE gospel!): One side is biblical, and the other is “liberal” or “postmodern.” And the same is true for the other side, either you are biblically-based, or you are a “fundamentalist.” What’s even more amazing to me is that equal amounts of hate and inconsideration are thrown vociferously about, claiming that the other side is hateful and close-minded. It makes me sad to see either/both side(s) dehumanize each other in order to criticize from a better, more “righteous” position. For one, I’m pretty sure that both sides are filled with well-meaning, sinners who have plenty of issues wrong on both sides. An excellent point from this Conversational Evangelism conference that I’ve been listening through, is that almost nobody on either side is sitting around thinking “how can I get into some apostasy today?” or “how can I deny Jesus Christ?” For-real Christians, liberal or conservative (I don’t care how much you think the other side can’t be “for-real.” Get over yourselves!), just don’t think that way! Both sides are trying to find how to best follow Christ in their set beliefs. Maybe neither side is really wrong. Perhaps there is more than the binary truth we like to see. Its a view I’ve tried to present here. There is more than wrong vs. right sometimes. (And now I’ve just lost almost all of you on both sides…) I thing there’s a lot more than the flat truth that is often presented. Mostly because I’m pretty certain that if there was only one view of “the right way” there would only be one Christian in the history of Christendom, and it would be Jesus. Not only can we not live perfectly to earn heaven, but we can’t believe perfectly! Sooo… thats probably something I already wrote on Maybe another time.

Back to the point, tearing down is just easier than building up and loving our enemies. Its easier to live with the “you can be wrong and we can be right” paradigm because that justifies our hatred and condescension to others; it satisfies our conscience our failures to be the lovers God has called us to be. And it will always be that way, unless a few people can lay aside their personal issues, chips on shoulders, take up their crosses, and follow Christ as they love their enemies, perceived or real. Hence, it will always be that way…

Granted, I get my liberal pretty well too, so I’m not exempt from what I’m be critical of, but I’m trying to reform… mostly The flesh in me would love to yell some more, but perhaps the Spirit would have me do otherwise… and yell at BOTH!!

Moving away from that though, to the rest of the weekend, this Sunday was excellent, good time of repentance on my part, I definitely needed it, mostly because of my definite lack of time dedicated to spend with God, and putting instead into other things. Good fellowship with the people of God as well and a challenge to always have the name of Jesus on my lips, not to shut up the word of God in my bones, from Isaiah and Matthew.

Finally got back into the blogs I frequent too. Its been a while since I’ve had a good amount of time to actually read some stuff again. An excellent interview with Charles Taylor from the always excellent Mars Hill Grad School’s Other Journal on the new atheist movement and how it is both interacting with western culture and being interacted with by more conservative circles. Read it if you have time.

Also last night and a good portion of this afternoon, still continuing in this Conversational Evangelism conference podcast series. I managed to snag the last of it off of the site. Its been absolutely wonderful to hear people speak of evangelism from a postmodern point of view (not just how to address postmoderns, how to evangelize as postmoderns), questioning how it ought to be done in an effective and genuine way. Not just evangelism alone, in the sense of speaking the Gospel, but how to actually engage the people around us in a lifestyle of living what we have in Jesus. Its been very encouraging to hear people talking the way I think for the first time in a while. The blessings of God are sweet.

“Every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of heavenly lights, in whom there is no shadow or variation.”

Lastly, for fun…

On protesting and how to oppose that which we think is wrong in a right way:

http://www.jesusmanifesto.com/2008/06/06/protesting-the-rnc/

Also, I love this picture

I’ve been reminded of something good tonight. Still slowly getting through Shane Clayborne’s book (along with several other books) and I ran across an idea I should be conscious of more often. I have been (and probably will continue to be) a proponent of a lot of more liberal thought and practice. I’ve taken a great deal of pride, often times, at the fact that I have come to a point in my life that I am a pacifist, a proponent for the care of the poor, anti-corporatism, and the living out of our faith in a postmodern world (in a postmodern way). But what I have forgotten is that pride is the sin of both sides, not just the one I react against. I often rail against the conservative church that is “conserving” themselves into oblivion and irrelevance, while not being humble enough to see my own short comings. I become much like the pharisee who thanked God for being much better than the sinful tax collector.

God forgive me. I ask your forgiveness as well, and ask that you keep me accountable to a higher standard.

Much Peace.

Collateral Damage – by NikonShooter

Reading once again on the God’s Politics blog tonight. An interesting article by Gareth Higgins tonight on how Christians ought to view diplomacy. Its an excellent question to be asking ourselves, especially in light of the current US policy on negotiations with our enemies.

Bush, in particular, as the spokesman for much of what we see as our government, has repeatedly spoken that we will not negotiate with terrorists, particularly of late, his statements at Israel’s anniversary. Now at face value, this seems to be a valid position to take. Who wants to negotiate, much less give in to those who demand something from us or desire to cause us harm?

Now, from a democratic (not the party), American, even simply human position, this seems very logical. Of course we’re supposed to be free from oppression, of course we should be free to live as we like without fear, unquestionably we should seek to spread freedom everywhere. Screw negotiations, we’d rather get rid of those against us. Is this the Christian way?

However, as Higgins points out, what better way to bring such peace about, on all sides, not just our terms, but through negotiations? If both sides were willing to lay down arms and talk about our differences? Now, from our side, its easy (unbelievably easy!) to say, that’ll never happen, the “terrorists” would never stop in there senseless killing to talk about peace! I think there is a huge reason for this: we are not willing to stop in our arguably senseless killing of “the enemy” to speak peace to our enemies. From day one we have pursued almost solely one course of action: aggression, non-negotiation, and war. Always, it is under the guise of “war to bring about peace” but is that truly possible? And peace on who’s terms? Quite obviously our own.

So where is the Christian to stand on these issues? How are we to speak of and pray for our enemies? How are we to be react to the actions of our government?

The question must continued to be asked: How do we live as the people of God? I am, quite frankly, becoming very disillusioned with all the things the world around me cries out as “just”, as “acceptable”, as “our rights as Americans and human beings.” The more I read from the Scriptures, the more opposed I see the calling of those who follow Jesus to the ways of the world, not just in how we view war and peace, but far more. I continually see the authors in that Book speaking of a way of life radically different from the world, to the point at which comments like: “You can live like a Christian and still not be one” would not make sense. If we truly lived as if what we believed and what God called us to, we would be so wildly different from the world around us, that it would be impossible not to take notice of the Christian people. We would probably be shunned, ignored, mocked, hell, even persecuted!

Wait a second… doesn’t the star of the story of the Bible have something to say about that?

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.”

We don’t get this if we look like we are everyone else. Somehow, we are supposed to be radically different from the world, not solely in what we believe, not just in what we say, but in how we live. If we truly believed this, we would cry out for a change in the world, speak up for the laying down of our arms and for the forgiveness of our enemies. We would seek to be makers of peace in the way of the One whom we call our Savior and Lord did: through the laying down our lives for our brother, through our love for our fellow man, through the care of those who cannot care for themselves (which is not just the unborn). The message of hope that we have in Jesus Christ needs to be spread to the world, the whole world, including those we often seek to kill to preserve others.

Where does that leave us? Its up to you to decide. Pray. Live love. Be radically different from the norm. Seek to represent Jesus to the world. Glorify God in ALL!

Pray for me as I seek to do the same (and fail as often as not).

Much love.

(Photo from: ://www.flickr.com/photos/literalsalmon/2213269497/)

I really liked this picture guys…

Anyways: Found this randomly tonight while making my rounds on the interweb…

You wanted to know how Christian pacifism is not a cop-out? How pacifism can actually be put to action? Here’s a sweet group that does just that. Its like an army of peace! I could definitely see myself signing up for something like this. Check it out!

Christian Peacemaker Teams

And here’s my notable link for the night on peacemaking and why pacifism is what Christians are to be about: Onward Christian Soldiers by Mark Van Steenwyk