Nancy Pelosi on Teen Pregnancy

Teen pregnancy and sex are obviously important issues in our culture. I don't have kids or know a lot of teens, so in that respect I'm not an expert. But, I think all Christians need to be aware of this issue and how it is handled in our culture. And I tend to think that we probably need to have a little more information for teens than "just say no."

Carol Platt Liebau at Townhall is someone who has done a lot of thinking and research on this issue and is a great resource if you are interested. She had some great comments about a recent appearance by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

Here is YouTube footage of Nancy Pelosi speaking to the Netroots Nation, impugning the idea of teaching children to abstain from sex as a "radical right wing view."

I've written before about the harmful and false dichotomy that people like Nancy Pelosi try to create between "abstinence education" and "comprehensive sex education." It's perfectly possible to inform young people about how their bodies work, where babies come from, and the existence of contraceptives while still teaching them that sex is something for adults -- for people who are mature enough to cope with the (often unexpected) emotional, psychological and physical ramifications (including the possibility of an STD or unwanted pregnancy) that can accompany sexual activity.

Too often, "comprehensive sex education" becomes a code term for adopting a studiously value-neutral about teen sexual activity. The approach validates, normalizes -- and occasionally even celebrates -- teen sex, which is the last message young people need to be getting. It increases the social pressures on those who want to be responsible, and implicitly ignores the emotional, psychological -- and, for people of faith -- spiritual fallout of giving too much, too soon (especially for girls).

Soul Searching part 4: MTD revisited

By Rich Bordner

(continued from here)

I quote Smith and Denton at length...hang in there, this quote is well worth reading in its entirety:

Adults in the United States over the past many decades have recurrently emphasized what separates teenagers from grown-ups, highlighting things that make each of them different and seemingly unable to relate to each other. But our conversations with ordinary teenagers around the country made clear to us, to the contrary, that in most cases teenage religion and spirituality in the United States are much better understood largely reflecting the world of adult religion, especially parental religion, and are in strong continuity with it. Few teenagers today are rejecting or reacting against the adult religion into which they are being socialized. Rather, most are living out their religious lives in very conventional and accommodating ways. The religion and spirituality of most teenagers actually strike us as very powerfully reflecting the contours, priorities, expectations, and structures of the larger adult world into which adolescents are being socialized. In many ways, religion is simply happily absorbed by youth, largely, one might say, by osmosis...

However, it appears that only a minority of U.S teenagers are naturally absorbing by osmosis the traditional substantive content and character of the religious traditions to which they claim to belong. For, it appears to us, another popular religious faith, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, is colonizing many historical religious traditions and, almost without anyone noticing, converting believers in the old faiths to its alternative religious vision of divinely underwritten personal happiness and interpersonal niceness...we can say here that we have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity's misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This has happened in the minds and hearts of many individual believers and, it also appears, within the structures of at least some Christian organizations and institutions. The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, Eucharist, and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward. It is not so much that U.S Christianity is being secularized. Rather more subtly, Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.

Election Update: Evangelicals for Obama?

If you're paying attention to the presidential election, you've probably seen more than one news report about how Obama is reaching out to evangelical Christians and how evangelicals are planning on voting for him in large numbers. Personally, I don't know how any Christian who cares about abortion and life issues could vote for him, but that's just me. What do the actual data say?

How many pieces have we read in recent months about how evangelical Christians are falling over themselves in a mad rush to support presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama? Every discovery that evangelicals care about more than just the sanctity of human life and traditional marriage is met with hopeful accounts about how the Republican Party is losing these voters to the Democratic Party.

Now, it may be true that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has failed to get many folks, including evangelicals, excited about him. But given all the coverage to the contrary, I was somewhat surprised to see the results of a new Pew study that indicates that Obama is getting slightly fewer — that’s right — fewer white evangelical supporters than John Kerry was at the same time four years ago.

If you follow the link, there are a lot of examples of media coverage saying evangelicals are supporting Obama. It's definitely not a trend that people are imagining.

Here's something interesting, though: voters aren't buying it. About half of Americans believe the media are trying to get us to vote Obama, and the numbers are growing:

The belief that reporters are trying to help Barack Obama win the fall campaign has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.

A separate survey released this morning also found that 50% of voters believe most reporters want to make the economy seem worse than it is. A plurality believes that the media has also tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is.

Interesting. It's heartening to see some sort of evidence that people are catching on to media bias. And this recent, spectacular example should help even more:

If you doubt the media are in the tank for Obama, doubt no more. The refusal of the New York Times to print McCain's op-ed on Obama after an Obama piece was published has nothing to do with editorial judgment and everything to do with protecting the media's heartthrob.

One final note of interest to political junkies: Dr. James Dobson is considering an endorsement for McCain, because he disagrees so strongly with Obama. It's a pretty big deal because up to now, Dr. Dobson was very opposed to McCain's candidacy.

"Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation," Dr. Dobson said in a statement to The Associated Press. "His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to re-evaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain. I have not endorsed him, but … I have concluded for the first time that I might. If that is a flip-flop, then so be it."

Soul Searching part 3: whatevah

By Rich Bordner

(continued from here)

In reading Soul Searching, I saw (and this is something that the authors note as well), that while many teens might say in a survey that religion is very or somewhat important to them, you get a totally different impression when you listen to them talk: even for many who go regularly to conservative, Bible-believing Protestant churches, it's just not that important to them, or that the adults in their lives don't help them think about and express their faith.

In fact, in the interviews, Smith and Denton noted that quite a few times their interview was the first time an adult had asked them what they believe spiritually. They found that religion in the home, typically, is not a source of conflict or friction simply because it is almost never talked about. (Keep in mind that most of these are teens who identify as religious, who go to church at least somewhat regularly (2-3 times a month at least). Very few identified as "not religious.") This led to the vast majority of teens being incredibly inarticulate in their faith.

Here are some examples from the interviews. These examples are not outliers or exaggerations; they represent typical statements. When asked what their religious/spiritual beliefs are, some responded with:

--"Uh, I haven't really thought about that (pause). I don't know."
--"Just, like, um, what they taught me, what I grew up knowing, I don't know."
--"I believe in the (pause), I, ohhh (pause), I don't think I'd really like to talk about that."
--"I don't remember."
--"Hm, I don't know, I'd have to like ask somebody or something, I don't know."

Here's what one 15 year-old white mainline Protestant girl from Michigan said. Note that she attends two church services every Sunday, Sunday school, youth group, and Wednesday night Bible study. (T: teen. I: interviewer):

T: "(Pause) I don't really know how to answer that."
I: "Are there any beliefs at all that are important to you? Really generally."
T: "(Pause) I don't know."
I: "Take your time if you want."
T: "I think that you should just, if you're gonna do something wrong, then you should always ask for forgiveness and he's gonna forgive you no matter what, 'cause he gave up his only son to take all the sins for you, so."

The following interview section from a white 14 year-old conservative Protestant girl displays a lack of enthusiasm that the authors noted is present in many of the teens they interviewed:

I: "When you think of God, what image do you have of God?"
T: "(Yawn)"
I: "What is God like?"
T: "Um, good. Powerful."
I: "Okay. Anything else?"
T: "Tall."
I: "Tall?"
T: "Big."
I: "Do you think God is active in people's lives or not?"
T: "Ah, I don't know."
I: "You're not sure?"
T: Different people have different views of him."
I: "What about your view?"
T: "What do you mean?"
I: "Do you think God is active in your life?"
T: "In my life? Yeah."
I: "Yeah, hmm. Would you say you feel close to God or not really?"
T: "Yeah, I feel close. (Yawns.)"
I: "Where do you get your ideas about God?"
T: "The Bible, my mom, church, Experience."
I: "What kind of experience?"
T: "He's just done a lot of good in my life, so."
I: "Like, what are examples of that?"
T: "I don't know."
I: "Well, I'd love to hear. What good has God done in your life?"
T: "I, well, I have a house, parents, I have the Internet, I have a phone, I have cable." (emphasis added)

True story...true story.

When asked how their faith affects their lives, some teens mentioned things that are pretty peripheral to the historic Christian faith, like not getting tattoos, cursing, why the sky is blue (I kid you not), and music tastes. Smith and Denton note that the teens tended to have to grope pretty hard for something that showed that religion/spirituality is important to them...this "groping" is evidence that it is, in fact, not that important to them, not that the sky being blue is really a momentous thing to them.

The authors state: "In the end, many teenagers know abundant details about the lives of favorite musicians and television stars or about what it takes to get into a good college, but most are not very clear on who Moses and Jesus were. This suggests that a strong, visible, salient, or intentional faith is not operating in the foreground of most teenagers' lives."

As I mentioned in past posts, its not helpful to paint any section of America with an overly broad brush. Teenagers, just like every other sector of the U.S, are diverse and varied in their lives and views. A select few were able to express their views well. But the authors noted a strong, strong trend in the other direction, sometimes in places that you wouldn't expect.

Good News about Stem Cell Research

I'm far from a scientific expert, but everything I read about stem cell research convinces me that the crowd pushing embryonic stem cells is way off base. It seems like research with adult stem cells--you know, the ones that don't involve killing a baby--is way more promising:

Stem cells drawn from the blood system of adult humans or the umbilical cord blood of newborns, injected into mice, formed viable vessels that may one day deliver oxygen-rich blood to damaged organs, researchers said.

This is just one recent example, but I've read a lot of similar stories in the past couple of years. If you're at all concerned about this issue, you really ought to read up on it so you have facts at hand to explain why it's not necessary to use embryonic stem cells.

Soul Searching part 2: Feeling Happy

By Rich Bordner

(read part 1 here)

If you want to know what interests a person, listen to how they talk; what kind of language do they use? How often do they say certain catch-phrases?

This is somewhat of an obvious observation, but many times we miss the obvious: a person's language reflects what's really on their mind and heart.

So, in matters of religion/spirituality, how do teens talk? In their interviews, authors Smith and Denton tracked the number of times their interviewees made reference to certain subjects of interest. Very few made reference to "historically central religious and theological ideas."

Here are some of those central theological ideas, with the number of teens that mentioned them (they did not need to say the phrase specifically for it to count...making a vague reference to the belief was enough). Remember, these are out of 267 interviews, and the authors argue that their findings with teens mirror the religious/spiritual lives of adults in America:

47-Personally sinning or being a sinner
13-Obedience
12-Repentance
9-Love for God
6-Salvation
5-Resurrection of the dead
5-Kingdom of God (2 Christian, 3 Mormon)
3-God's grace
3-The Bible as holy
3-Honoring God
3-Loving one's neighbor
2-God's justice
0-Self-discipline
0-Working for social justice
0-Being justified
0-Sanctification

What were the most popular things mentioned?

112-Personally feeling, being, getting, or being made happy
99-Feeling good about oneself or life
92-Feeling better about oneself or life
26-Feeling personally satisfied or enjoying life satisfaction
21-Being or feeling personally fulfilled

Anyone see a problem with this?

The authors state: "When teenagers talked in their interviews about grace, they were usually talking about the television show Will and Grace, not about God's grace. When teenagers discussed honor, they were almost always talking about taking honors courses or making the honor roll at school, very rarely about honoring God with their lives. When teens mentioned being justified, they almost always meant having a reason for doing something behaviorally questionable, not having their relationship with God made right."

They continue: "Note that these are not total number of times that teenagers used a word or phrase, but simply the number of teens who used them. In fact, our teenagers used the single, specific phrase to "feel happy" well more than 2,000 times.

Wow....Parents, adults, youth leaders, pastors: I call that a gauntlet.

Will we pick it up?

The Church of England: Another Step Toward Irrelevance

The Archbishop of Canterbury once again contributes to the decline of his own church in the name of tolerance:

Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.

Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.

His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.

But it risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system.

James Lileks is dead on about why this is a problem (scroll down about 2/3 of the way):

He would probably be seconded on that point by this fellow [the Archbishop of Canterbury], who I expect will name an atheist as his successor, as part of an outreach program to attract people uncomfortable with the whole “God” part of religion. There really isn’t any reason to set the bar that high, you know. In his latest missive, he has acknowledged that parts of Christianity may “offend” Muslims, which is a fascinating choice of words. It puts doctrinal differences into the realm of emotional reaction, and as we all know “offence” must be followed with apologies and seminars and outreach and an hour of steady banging of the head on the hard marble floor. No one has the right to give offense, but everyone has the right – indeed, the obligation – to be offended by something.

It’s the natural end result of elevating tolerance above all else: eventually you are intolerant of the things in which you once believed, because they are theoretically offensive to those who have no interest in the maintenance of your traditions. In the end, traditions are just social constructs used to impose social order; best if we do away with them anyway.

[Plus, Lileks has the best metaphor ever for the decline of the Brits: "Meanwhile, over in Blighty: every day brings another story that suggests they could power the lights on the Strand by harnessing the RPMs of Churchill’s corpse." I love that creativity!]

Obviously Lileks is dripping with sarcasm here, but he’s right. If you’re willing to give up the core of our religion because someone might be offended, what do you really believe in? It is very troubling to me that the supposed leader of one of the largest churches in the world is so eager to set aside the cornerstone of his faith, or at least what should be the cornerstone of his faith, to achieve some sort of amorphous goal of peace, tolerance and social/environmental justice.

Obama's Flawed Judgment

Betsy Newmark gives a great review of current reporting on Obama’s stand on the Iraq War. The key point a lot of people are making right now is that Obama’s judgment on the surge was deeply flawed, and he’s compounded the error by not admitting it.

Whether you supported the war in the first place or not, we now have too much to lose to start backing down now. Obama might have learned that if he'd waited to actually find out the facts on his fact-finding tour instead of issuing his policies before going over there. But that would have been the responsible rather than the political thing to do and we can judge Obama by the choice he made.

Read the whole thing, it’s good! If you’re into politics and understand what the typical biases of the big newspapers are, you’ll be blown away by the really harsh editorial from the Washington Post.

Remember, Obama is a little light in the experience department, so he's trying to sell us on his superior judgment. It's pretty noteworthly that even leading mainstream newspapers are starting to question it.

Soul Searching part 1: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

By Rich Bordner

In their book Soul Searching, sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Denton write on a national survey of the religious lives of American teenagers. In the course of their research, their team surveyed over 1,200 teens from all over the U.S, and personally interviewed 267 of those surveyed.

What they found was somewhat surprising, somewhat not.

On the surprising front, they found that, contrary to the stereotype, the overwhelming majority of teenagers are not rebellious in their religious beliefs and practices. Rather, they are very conventional when it comes to religion; they are quite content to just go along with what they've been raised to believe.

Encouraging? No, not really, because the authors found that what they are raised to believe is a quite paltry version of Christianity: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

1. A God exists who created the world and watches over humans.
2. God wants people to be nice and good.
3. The purpose of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be very involved in one's life except when He's needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven.

While none of those interviewed explicitly stated this creed (as I'll write about in a later post, most of them couldn't explicitly state any religious beliefs whatever. Some had difficulty with even comprehending the question "what are your religious/spiritual beliefs?"), their feelings on spirituality boiled down to it.

While some teens they interviewed were able to rise above this, and while a select few (very, very few) rejected religion wholesale and preferred instead to think, feel, and talk like Christopher Hitchens disciples, "Christian" Moralistic Therapeutic Deism functioned as the bottom line, unquestioned worldview of a substantial majority of those interviewed to the point where asking them to question those notions was like asking them to question 2+2=4.

M.T.D, obviously, is not Christian, yet, the authors argued, it functions as a parasite on the historic Christian faith. Even many of those raised in "devoted" Christian homes, who are leaders in youth groups, faithfully attending conservative (as opposed to mainline) protestant churches, hold this view.

You might ask, "How could a teen who is raised by devoted Christian parents, who faithfully attends a Bible-believing church, and who is a leader in the youth group, swallow this sham almost wholesale?" The answer is: very easily, given the pervasive, subtle, yet corrosive influence of our culture on the young. With a proliferation of digital media flooding into American homes (TV, iPods, the web, cell phones, etc), plus the nature of public schooling, this is very hard to avoid if adults do not persistently and consistently engage and teach the young....and that is exactly what is NOT happening. Rather than being intentional about teaching them solid biblical truth, many prefer instead to just "expose" teens to Jesus.

The proliferation of this worldview amongst teens is a new phenomenon, something that has popped up on the social and religious scene in the last 30 years or so, and it is a phenomenon that mirrors the young adult and adult world. Therefore, in the next few posts, I will be commenting on it and drawing implications for Christ-followers today.

Can We Really Soak the Rich?

If you pay much attention to politics, you'll hear a lot of politicians, especially Democrats, talking about “soaking the rich” by raising tax rates for the top tax bracket. But do you know the rich already pay the lion’s share of taxes in this country?

New data from the IRS will be out in a few weeks on who pays how much in taxes. My contacts at the Treasury Department tell me that for the first time in decades, and perhaps ever, the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

Further, increasing the top tax rate has a negative effect on the economy. Here’s the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Will increasing tax rates on the rich increase revenues, as Barack Obama hopes, or hold back the economy, as John McCain fears? Or both?

Mr. Hauser uncovered the means to answer these questions definitively. On this page in 1993, he stated that "No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP." What a pity that his discovery has not been more widely disseminated.

The chart [at the link], updating the evidence to 2007, confirms Hauser's Law. The federal tax "yield" (revenues divided by GDP) has remained close to 19.5%, even as the top tax bracket was brought down from 91% to the present 35%. This is what scientists call an "independence theorem," and it cuts the Gordian Knot of tax policy debate.

The data show that the tax yield has been independent of marginal tax rates over this period, but tax revenue is directly proportional to GDP. So if we want to increase tax revenue, we need to increase GDP.

What happens if we instead raise tax rates? Economists of all persuasions accept that a tax rate hike will reduce GDP, in which case Hauser's Law says it will also lower tax revenue. That's a highly inconvenient truth for redistributive tax policy, and it flies in the face of deeply felt beliefs about social justice. It would surely be unpopular today with those presidential candidates who plan to raise tax rates on the rich – if they knew about it….

What makes Hauser's Law work? For supply-siders there is no mystery. As Mr. Hauser said: "Raising taxes encourages taxpayers to shift, hide and underreport income. . . . Higher taxes reduce the incentives to work, produce, invest and save, thereby dampening overall economic activity and job creation."

So if you’re counting on tax increases for the rich to fund your big new government programs, like Obama is, you’re most likely going to be awfully disappointed when the money doesn’t come in. Plus the whole economy will slow down at the same time. Nice.

Islam in Public Schools

Britain’s slow decline continues:

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

But that can’t happen here, right? We have freedom of religion, strict separation of church and state, all that good stuff that makes people afraid to have a voluntary Bible study after school? Wrong:

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving the indoctrination of public school children into Islam. The decision came on the First Monday of October, the opening day of the 2006 Supreme Court term.

Not surprisingly, the controversial case comes from a ruling made by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But what is surprising, is that hardly anyone has heard of the legal battle.

The lawsuit stems from a state mandated course in California public schools that requires seventh grade students to learn about Islam, the teachings of Muhammad, as well as studying scriptures from the Quran.

Though the course is mandated, the Californian Department of Education allows teachers to exercise their own discretion on how the course on Islam is to be
taught.

This discretion encouraged one teacher in the Bryon Union School District to adopt a supplementary “Student Guide” that specifically states:

"From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims."

There's lots more about the specific content of the class at the link, or if you Google "byron school islam." To me, it's pretty appalling that this sort of thing goes on in the name of tolerance. Obviously kids should learn in history class about the impact of Islam on world history, and the same goes for Christianity. But requiring them to act out aspects of any religion for course credit takes multiculturalism WAY too far. And yes, I'd feel the same way about a public school class that required students, in class, to pray to Jesus like an evangelical or cross themselves like a Catholic.

Hats off to the Anchoress

I know I link to the Anchoress a lot, but she’s one of my favorite bloggers. And right now she’s really on a roll.

First, here’s an interesting post on the tendency of Americans to picture themselves as victims, contrasted with advice on acting like an adult.

Then there’s this, on Obama’s recent statement that all Americans really ought to learn Spanish, because it’s so embarrassing to him that American tourists go to France and all they can say is “merci beaucoup” (note that’s French, not Spanish, so it’s not clear how his suggestions that we ought to learn Spanish would help!):

Sophistication is empty and insubstantial. It does not save lives. It does not free people. Sophistication simply dresses well and knows not to choose the chianti. All very important in these serious times, right?

You should definitely read the whole thing--it's dead on.

John McCain: Right on Life

So it took longer than I thought, but I've finally done the research about John McCain to contrast his positions on abortion with Obama's (see "Obama is Far, Far Left on Abortion"). Here's the good news for conservatives: McCain appears to be solidly pro-life.

Starting with his own website:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, "At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level."

There's a lot more at the link, including encouraging views on adoption, marriage, and stem-cell research.

One of the reasons you may not know much about McCain's views on abortion is that many pro-life groups resent his campaign finance bill, which restricted what they could say about candidates in pre-election advertising. So they aren't solidly behind him, and they aren't out there stumping for him. Here's what National Right to Life has to say:

National Right to Life PAC strongly supports Senator John McCain for United States President and we have supported him in all of his U.S. Senate races.

Even while National Right to Life disagreed with Senator McCain on campaign finance reform, Senator McCain did not waver in his votes against abortion.

Senator John McCain has a solid voting record against abortion and has cast 31 pro-life votes since 1997.

Since pro-life groups are a little lukewarm due to the campaign finance issue, some of the best information actually came from NARAL. NARAL, which wholeheartedly endorsed Obama, considers McCain to be "solidly anti-choice" and gives him a 0% score on abortion votes in the past 6 years. If NARAL doesn't like him, that's a pretty good reason to vote for McCain right there.

One last thing--John McCain doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk. From a Karl Rove editorial in the Wall Street Journal (most of the article is a fellow POW, Medal of Honor winner Col. Bud Day, talking about McCain's time in Vietnam, and that's a good read too):

The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor.

For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

Contrast that with Obama:

Obama said the battle for abortion rights should be fought from the offensive, instead of a simple defense of what activists have achieved thus far.

And he reiterated his opposition to the two justices appointed by Bush who sit on the Supreme Court--Roberts and Samuel Alito. Obama voted against both.

“It is important for us, obviously, not only to get a Democratic White House as well as a stronger Congress to protect these rights,” Obama said.

I have to admit I'm not thrilled with all of John McCain's policies and proposals. Like a lot of people I know, I wish he was more conservative. But at least he's got this one right. and it's a big one.

The Erosion of Liberty in America

We can see it all the time: when evil is allowed to grow, irony abounds. Take what happened recently on the streets of Philadelphia immediately outside the Liberty Bell display. Inscribed on the bell reads these words: “PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF.” This comes from an Old Testament verse found in Leviticus 25:10. As shown in the video below, law enforcement officers on duty outside this sacred historical site took away to jail a guy who was actually putting into practice what the inscription on the bell implored any noble American to do: proclaim liberty! (By the way, can anyone proclaim liberty any better than proclaiming the Good News of Jesus?) Apparently, these officers, whose duty it is to defend and preserve such inalienable rights as the freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble, and the freedom of religion, must have all been sick from school the day those First Amendment Rights were taught.

The officers argued that what was unacceptable was for someone to preach immediately in front of the entrance where people were waiting in line to see the bell. Again, the second part of that verse inscribed on the bell reads: “unto all the inhabitants thereof.” Someone should ask the officers if it would be reasonable for one to conclude that those waiting to see for themselves the inscription should be included as part of “all the inhabitants”.

The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3:17, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Well, I don’t think there was much freedom going on around those “law enforcement officers” that day! Oh, the irony! I think the crack in the Liberty Bell, just got bigger.

Freedom of Worship

Closing out the holiday weekend, this Sunday is a great time to thank God for blessing us with freedom to worship as we choose. I'm constantly reminded by news from other countries that many Christians aren't nearly so fortunate. Here's one historical example from Greg Kundra, a CBS Evening News writer and Catholic deacon (hat tip: Anchoress):

In the early 1970’s, during the Vietnam War, the Archbishop of Saigon was a man named Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan. The Communists saw him as a threat. And on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1975, he was arrested and sent to prison. Without ever being tried, or sentenced, he was shipped off to a prison in North Vietnam. He stayed there for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement.

There are many parts of the world today where you can be imprisoned or killed for practicing the Christian faith, especially if you're a convert from Islam--North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. Open Doors has a list of persecuting countries that makes a good prayer guide.

On a more positive note, the Anchoress also has a great post about Jesus, the incarnation of God in the flesh, about what it means that He was a man who walked the earth. In light of the persecution in the world, it's good to be reminded of the power of the Gospel.

Political Potpourri

Edition 2 of our new semi-regular roundup of newsworthy items...

Yet another installment in the slow and disturbing decay of Western values in the United Kingdom:

Muslims have complained over a police advert featuring a puppy sitting in an officer's hat. A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the "offensive" postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel.

Horrors continue in Zimbabwe, and no one seems to quite be able to muster the courage to do something about it:

The supposedly civilised world has allowed Mugabe and his horrors to happen, mainly unchecked. Sanctions on his country merely starve those who disagree with him. Zimbabwe has all the natural, and had all the human, resources to be an example to the rest of Africa. It is now merely a symbol of what happens when a dictator takes charge, and those who might rein him in simply look away.

The guy who came up with the whole national health care system in Canada now thinks it was a bad idea:

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

In Obama news, the Boston Globe has done some high-quality investigative reporting into some pretty shady dealings in Chicago. It's a lengthy discussion of the complete failure of public housing in Obama’s Illinois state senate district, managed under programs he supports and by people involved in his campaigns, including Tony Rezko.

And at least one commentator is worried about what an Obama presidency might mean for individual freedoms in the United States. Jeffrey Lord writes:

Pull back for a moment from the day-to-day and see the pattern.

Talk radio. Oil. Guns. Global warming. Smoking.

On the surface this is a seemingly unconnected laundry list of issues, their connection one to another tangential at best. Or is it?

In the increasingly disturbing view we are all getting of the messianic world that is Obamaland, these subjects in fact have a chilling commonality.

Remember, it's not only the freedoms listed in the first and second amendments that make this country great. As a conservative, I also value the freedom to spend my time and money the way I want to, to be in control of my own health care, to make (currently hypothetical) decisions about my (future) children's schooling, etc. And if I want to use my own money to heat my house to 72 degrees (I don't) or drive an SUV (I do!), the government really ought to stay out of my way. You know, it's that whole crazy thing about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"... seems like maybe I read that somewhere... might be an important part of the founding of our country or something... anyone?

Freedom Isn't Free, part II

Happy 4th of July! What a great day to celebrate this great country and the freedoms it gives us--freedom to speak, worship, assemble together--freedom to live! I know it sounds weird, but when I was a kid, this was actually my favorite holiday of the whole year. There's just something incredible about our country--not perfect, of course, but beautiful and open and growing and exciting and a beacon of freedom to the world. I know all that's awkward, but it's a feeling I really struggle to put into words.

I wrote last week that, it's a cliche, but freedom isn't free. So today I also remember and honor the sacrifices of all the men and women who have fought to protect this land. In that spirit, here's part of a speech Ronald Reagan gave in 1984, on the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy in World War II (you can read the whole speech and listen to it here). It's about 225 brave U.S. Army Rangers, the "Boys of Pointe du Hoc," who climbed a cliff under enemy gunfire to seize a key gun emplacement and held it for two days before being reinforced. Only 90 were still able to fight by the time the main U.S. force fought their way there. This literally makes me cry every time I read it:

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They thought--or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4 a.m., in Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do. Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.''

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies....

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

What Do You Believe?

Yesterday, in a post about the Bishop of Rochester, Rich included this:

We are rebels in arms against God, and only God's gracious offer of amnesty through Christ can change that....F-A-C-T. T-R-U-T-H, not just "for me," but objectively, is true regardless of who believes it.

Maybe some of us have never really believed that in the first place.

This reminded me of a recent Pew Research study of religion in the United States. There’s a lot of stuff in there, and if you’re interested in statistics about religion you can find a lot to chew on.
There’s some alarming trends, like this:

The Landscape Survey confirms that the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%.

And this:

The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

And then, if you dig into the report (available in PDF files at the link), you’ll find this:

Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions--not just their own--can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%). Only among Mormons (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%) do majorities say that their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life. (emphasis mine)

I’m really troubled by this. Honestly, I don’t understand why you would spend time and money on religious activities if you don’t actually believe you’re following the Truth. Why are you messing around? And the Truth in my church, and most evangelical churches I know, and most importantly, in the Word of God, is that Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There are a lot of other verses to back that up, but it seems pretty clear to me. So what are people thinking?

I’m pretty sure that our current cultural view of tolerance is one of the factors here. We are told in school, in movies, in the media that we shouldn’t tell people that they are wrong. We shouldn’t believe in absolute truth. Clearly it’s started to creep into our churches as well. Plus, I guess, there is the human tendency to wish that no one has to be consigned to hell, or at least only a few really really bad people like Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler. But just because something sounds nice doesn't make it true.

I wish I had an answer. I guess all I can do is remind you that it’s important to THINK, not just feel, about your faith. Know what your core beliefs are, and why you hold them. Think about how they should affect your life, change your behavior, modify your mental habits. Think honestly about the challenges to those beliefs that you might hear from a non-Christian, and know how you would respond. Know what ideas in the culture might pull you away from those beliefs, and be on guard against them. Be ready to talk about this information with others.

It doesn’t seem like enough, somehow, in this multi-cultural, “tolerant,” media-saturated society. But I’ve chosen to believe God’s Word, and in it Jesus says: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." So that's the best I've got, and since it comes from God, I have to trust that it's good enough.

UPDATE: A friend just pointed me to a great article by Cal Thomas on the same topic: "Do They Think Jesus Was a Liar?" It's good, not too long, you should check it out!

UPDATE 2: Just realized this post had no title, so I added one. Sorry!

Western Christ followers: "Recover thy nerve"

By Rich Bordner

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, an Anglican Bishop from Rochester, England, has been the center of much controversy for a few years now. Most of the controversy hovers around his comments about Islam. For one, he has unashamedly called for the evangelism of Muslims worldwide.

Here in the wild, wild west, 'dems fightin' woyds. "GASP! He said WHAT?! How dare the bigot offend our Muslim friends! Quick! Call the Human Rights Gestapo, er, Commission!"

Where's Canada when you need it? Sheesh.

It comes as no surprise that non-Christians balk at such sentiments. Though inclusivism, relativism, and pluralism are in error, the fact that most in the non-believing world are fans of those ideas is hardly front-page news. It is a horse of a different color, though, when Christians themselves embrace these ideas, as many of Nazir-Ali's colleagues in Anglicanism have.

Nazir-Ali has noticed this zeitgeist in the western church at large, and this week at a press conference at GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference) he re-affirmed his stance. In his speech, he exhorted all fellow Christians to speak up about their faith wherever they are at, and also to commit to bringing the gospel message to peoples that have not heard it before.

"Let us pray we are able to recover the Christian nerve in the West and to make sure the Gospel is not lost," he said.

To paraphrase: "Brothers and sisters in the LORD...there's a gauntlet...you gonna pick it up, or just stare at it?"

This guy gets it. He perceives, correctly, I think, that many (though not all...I don't want to over-generalize here.) of us in the western church have a squishy backbone when it comes to talking to folks about the gospel. We allow the persecution of being called intolerant (can that even be called "persecution"? Nah, man.) to obscure the fact that without Christ, no one will escape the gavel of God's justice. We are rebels in arms against God, and only God's gracious offer of amnesty through Christ can change that....F-A-C-T. T-R-U-T-H, not just "for me," but objectively, is true regardless of who believes it.

Maybe some of us have never really believed that in the first place.

At any rate, Nazir-Ali gets that a significant portion of us are losing this focus. Many of us are content only to serve their earthly needs, giving people cups of cold water and then watching as they jump off the cliff of eternity, straight to hell.

That is not love.

Serving earthly needs is necessary, and cannot be divorced from the Kingdom. But neither can a bold proclamation of the full counsel of God. This is why Nazir-Ali's exhortation to "recover (our) nerve" is a worthy prescription for many believers in the west.