In Ron Sider’s new book The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Why Are Christians Missing the Chance to Really Change the World? Sider gives the reader a short piece on how Ed Dobson lamented on the Moral Majority’s need for a coherent political philosophy (at the time Dobson was Vice President of the Moral Majority). This failure to reflect, Dobson felt, contributed to many of the movement’s failures.

Dobson says that “a ready, aim, fire” approach led to the thinking of an American favored nation status while neglecting what the Bible teaches about the poor, unfairly attacking enemies, and using manipulative fund-raising techniques.

The book argues that the “absence of any widely accepted, systematic reflection on politics leads to contradiction, confusion, ineffectiveness, even biblical unfaithfulness in political work.

Consider the inconsistencies with the regard to the sanctity of human life. Almost all evangelicals agree with the principle. But many evangelical pro-life movements focus largely on the question of abortion—as if, as one wag commented, life begins at conception and ends at birth. But what about the millions of children who die every year of starvation or the millions of adults killed annually by tobacco smoke? Are those not also sanctity of life issues?”

Sider points out that Jesse Helms was a prominent pro-life leader who happened to represent happened to represent the largest tobacco growing country in the United States—even supporting government subsidies for tobacco growers shipping America tobacco to poor nations under America’s Food for Peace Program.

Files under Ron Sider, Scripture, politics, republican | |

My good friend Larry Chouinard, who blogs at Spiritual Conversations, has made his most recent publication, The Way of the King, available as a free download. [download it here]

Files under Evangelism, Larry Chouinard, emergent, missional | |

Here are two sermons by Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama’s pastor. The first captures the context of Rev. Wright’s GD America clip run first by Fox News and ABC.

The second captures the context of Rev. Wright’s most controversial comments – about “chickens coming home to roost “9/11 comments. “

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvMbeVQj6Lw[/youtube]

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

Files under Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Presidential Canidates, Racial Relations, politics | |

In his new book, Who’s Your City? Richard Florida examines how “mega-regions” are driving the global economy and how each one is informed by its own distinct personality. Where we choose to live, argues Florida, is crucial not only to how we live and who we share our lives with, but also to what kind of career we end up having.

 The maps above (called geographical clustering) are dictated by five basic personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. What I find interesting is his conclusions. Florida asks an intriguing question.

“What if skill is more than education and more than work? The type of skill economists are interested in, he writes, “implies something that can be acquired with proper training, talent, motivation, and resources.” But, he adds, “It’s more consistent with personality theory to argue that personality traits predispose people to acquire certain skills.

 Agreeableness is associated with jobs in management and health care. And, while it is positively associated with innovation, high-tech industry, wages, and income in our more advanced models, the effects are quite small. This could mean that the ability to work well with others contributes, albeit slightly, to innovation.

Neuroticism is negatively associated with top talent in the form of human capital or the super-creative class. In more advanced models, it also turns out to be negatively associated with the creative class, high-tech industry, and wages. In other words, regions with high concentrations of highly educated and ultra-creative individuals tend to be more emotionally stable, less volatile, and more resilient. This suggests, among other things, that these are places where people may be more likely to take risks because they’re less concerned about failure.

Extroversion is significantly correlated with management and sales jobs, but it too has no effect on human capital overall, high-tech jobs, or regional income.

Richard Florida and the Creative Class Exchange

Files under Culture, Richard Florida, creative, creative class, creativite, global | |

I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’m an independent who freely votes for the candidate who best suits my distinct creationist stream of thought. Something I’ve noticed of late is how Christianity seemingly attracts those with conservative views while repelling those who are more liberal in their politics. It’s the, “I’m sorry, Hillary and Barack, only conservatives can go to heaven” attitude.

For me, it simply reinforces my belief that elephants can be blind. Conversely we discovered in one day, actually in less than one hour, just how contradictory spoken words can be. Senator Obama established that yesterday with an articulate, yet confusing speech on his experience and understanding of his pastor of twenty years, racial division, and unity. Articulate is a word that well describes this Senator’s word-smithy talents. But unfortunately his communication was murky and muddy at best. History may mark March 18th as the turning point in Obama’s presidential run. Personally, I found little for Obama to gain from his talk.

Back to the elephants. To keep Christianity linked to a one-party system, the issues have to be few and emotionally compelling. Any broader embracing of issues that calls for a more nuanced, less emotional sorting of factors moves toward greater political ambiguity. The Gospel message of peace, justice, and non-violence, though major concerns of Jesus, are lost in the fog of hot-button issues that tend to be moral in nature (same-sex marriages, abortion, right-to-life) that galvanize voters and demonize the other side.

 In a week’s time I think more about this country’s tanking economy and the growing federal deficit than I do the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. But how excited does anyone get about the federal budget? Defending the sanctity of marriage is much more sexy, but my guess is the sanctity of marriage is not in any real danger regardless of what the Constitution says, and making same-sex marriages unconstitutional is going to have little or no effect on gay couples.

The Gospel has social ramifications and, because of that, political ones as well; it’s just that there are no clear connections between following Christ and the political platform of either party in America. The best thing that could come out of this presidential election year would be for Christ-followers to grasp the opportunity to show both solidarity and celebration as common practices among believers who agree on Christ as our Savior, even in our differences over personalities and political platforms.

Files under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Canidates, Racial Relations, democrate, libertarian, politics, republican, same sex | |

Files under blogging | |

If I could measure faith with a meter, it would drop to its lowest point when reflecting on God’s promises. Most divine promises are far reaching and limited by the curvature of time limits. Because I cannot see beyond the handwidth of my life God’s promises often challenges my faith.

I wonder if Abraham had any doubts or questions when God told him He would bless him and make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sands on the seashore? If I had been Abraham I would have had a few doubts with the few grains of sand I would have been allowed to hold. In my opinion it was a distant landscape of faith requiring an imagination for belief.

Like Abraham, we are promised much—but not one of us is granted more than a few grains to hold. Only by faith can we imagine the surf that we are promised will one day lap upon our shore.

It’s the complex thinker in me that excogitates the fragments of which a life is made of. Do fragments of my story and yours, in some mysterious way reflect the plan and the material of the whole? Are there fragments of necessity? Are parts of life thrown away, while other fragments from it transcend time because their fulfillment, though small, are important pieces in the divine work?

From our brief time on earth, it’s impossible for us to know which parts of our lives are fragments to be thrown away and which parts are fragments of necessity, reflecting a divine work that may be centuries in the making. It was just as difficult, I’m sure, for Abraham to know.

Files under doubt, faith | |

Studies on church attendance—statistics and percentages of unchurched peoples versus church people have become so commonplace through the years that it’s difficult to give much attention to their conclusions. But George Barna has just released a new model measuring church involvement/participation. What’s makes Barna’s study different is his approach. Unlike all those other church growth stats Barna addresses new behavioral patterns.  The mix includes new forms of faith communities and experiences, such as house churches, marketplace ministries and cyberchurches. The study correctly points out that counting the “unchurched” has grown more complicated.  [read the complete article] 

Files under Church, George Barna, church growth, unchurched | |

I’ve spent a lot of time watching (and expositing) culture to the neglect of personal bible study. Publicly, I’ve argued that we need to spend as much time lucubrating culture as we have given to expositing Scripture. Maybe it’s an unconscious neglect based upon a belief that my Scriptural knowledge far exceeds my ability to obey what I know (I know more bible than I’ll ever obey). I need to find my way back to the middle.

Files under Culture, bible | |

Do we understand this? [College Life in the City]

Files under christian college | |