I Voted for ME
Posted by: Brent James on January 30, 2008 Biblical Values •
Last night I watched video clips of the Florida primary exit polling. The good citizens were asked, “What do you think are the key issues?” Some responded to the question by personalizing its context. The question for them became, “What are the key issues that affect me?” One retired gentleman offered healthcare and the high cost of prescription drugs, saying, “That’s what effects me most.” I was bothered to hear him say that and wondered how many of us think in similar fashion, completely unaware.
Today, I asked some kids in my neighborhood what they thought about the concept. I repeated the interview question as well as the man’s response then asked, “Was that a good answer? If not, what should it have been?” The three of them thought about it and one young girl, about 10 years old, said, “He should vote on what is important to everybody, not just him.” Exactly. We’re all in this together.
As we prepare to vote in the coming weeks, let’s shift our focus. Expand its understandably narrow confines and consider how our vote affects America.
For the common good, as they say.
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Financial Outlook Remains Doubtful
Posted by: Brent James on January 29, 2008 Hot Issues •
Financial Outlook Remains Doubtful
Fewer people have been driving Fords lately. You see, the Ford Motor Company and its subsidiaries aren’t selling vehicles as they would like. They have a problem, a thorn so to speak. The American Family Association’s boycott of their products has made for some serious financial woes. And for good reason. Ford has been advocating homosexuality despite its continually deteriorating bottom line. By pouring thousands of sponsorship dollars into homosexual rights groups, the corporation stands perilously close to sinking the very ship making these funds possible.
Billions of dollars and thousands of Ford employee jobs have been lost in the 22 months since AFA began the boycott. The price of political correctness. See the damage for yourself. Despite these losses and calls from its own dealers to change the policy, Ford headquarters plows blindly ahead toward the cliff. Just goes to show you how little control shareholders have. But, it also demonstrates a broader point – that credible and purposeful collaboration can work wonders, especially among a united voter bloc.
You get the idea.
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Agents of Change
Posted by: Brent James on January 29, 2008 Hot Issues •
I live in a small town next to a big city. Everyone in the small town worries that the big city is going to annex us and turn us into them. They have more crime, higher taxes, worse traffic and all the other benefits that come with growth. Then, as annexation worries subside, growth springs upon us. The growth advocates tell us that it’s a good thing. They tell us that we just “need some change.”
Now, we have more shopping malls, more housing developments, rising crime, higher taxes, traffic, etc. And they said our sleepy little town would stay the same. I prefer things like they were, but permanence has little relevance in a temporal span. The Bible teaches that aside from God’s nature, everything is subject to change. It is inevitable and constant. Expect it.
There’s nothing wrong with change unless you don’t want it. Who wants square tires put on their car? Most of us appreciate the kind of changes that keep life interesting. When people talk about change, however, they are talking about pepperoni instead of sausage – not homosexual marriage. They are talking about an Apple instead of a PC – not mandatory healthcare coverage courtesy of the federal government.
So be careful when the presidential candidates speak of ‘change’ as they are doing with great regularity and little specificity. After November, it will have vastly different meanings depending on your point of view. As a country, we are in dire need of changes in Washington. Ask yourself: Are these the changes we want? How will their changes change America? How will they change our lives? Lots to ponder.
Vote your values.
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Still Wide Open
Posted by: Brent James on January 28, 2008 Hot Issues •
The candidate pool continues to thin, but this 2008 election is still wide open, as they say.
So far, as unpredictable as this contest has proven, there’s no slowing the endless stream of punditry steam. At best, it is interesting and at worst, tiresome. So now, the real challenge is staying tuned to be fully informed, but not watching enough to make you sick before the show is over. Yeah, I’ll admit, I’m almost there, but many are just tuning in since there are now fewer talking heads. So long Fred Thompson. Who’s next? I’m hearing John Edwards and Rudy Guiliani. We’ll see.
I don’t know about you, but I like learning. Education should be a lifelong pursuit. Those engaged in the process of learning carry a brighter perspective and are less likely to sit idle. We all have fat brains (some more than others), so why don’t we use them to judge the ‘rightness’ of the candidates. No political play on words, mind you, we must identify our values as represented by one of those campaigning for our vote. I’m amazed (disappointedly so) at the predominant gauge.
We’re still browsing in a pet store, trying to find a breed, color, and personality that suits every need. Which puppy is the cutest? Which has a kind face? Will he be docile when he grows up? The puppies engage prospective buyers by wagging their tails and pressing wet noses against the enclosures. And the big question: Can he win? Maybe I’m being too black and white, but why aren’t we asking “Who is the right person to lead this country?” “Who will champion my values and do what is right?” Is that then a wasted vote for the sake of values?
We may be growing weary. Really, how many election specials can you consume? This 2008 election has, and will continue, to break the record for most debates in a cycle – over 38 now between both parties. Blab overload.
Florida’s 27 electoral votes are up for grabs. The Republicans are all over the state and all over themselves. Allegedly, the Democats decided not to show in the Sunshine state because it moved up its primary date against party rules. Carol Cox, political analyst on Fox News makes the point here.
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94% United
Posted by: Brent James on January 25, 2008 Hot Issues •
For years we have heard opponents, vainly attempting to forestall any action on the issue, regard abortion as a nominal political nuisance. Like a squeaky ironing board – you just have to live with it. Repackage it. Call it something else and pretend, as we do with the IRS, that it would cause too many problems to simply rid ourselves of it.
But the fight is taking a noticeable turn. Our commitment is deepening. I am reading more intensity, more passion to finally end this vile bane. Sons and daughters have risen to help advance their parent’s cause and they have little tolerance for the status quo. If unity is the measure of our resolve then according to the Barna Group we are indeed ever strong for life. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group and director of a new study says, “‘Evangelicals’ top concern – by a wide margin – is abortion (94 percent).” Amazing. Seldom does any group seeking redress on a matter with the government achieve such consensus. But then, we have a common bond. Read the complete results of this study.
“Understanding the faith-driven vote is as complex as assessing the nation’s spiritual profile,” Kinnaman said. “Around election time, Christian voters – and in particular, evangelical voters – are painted with broad brushstrokes.” The report also noted that there are some 68 million ‘born again’ Christian voters in the U.S.
You’d think, as the abortion lobby has long hoped, that the energy and dedication of the pro-life brotherhood would have diminished over decades of protracted engagement. But the exact opposite has happened. This companion WorldNetDaily article is telling.
We owe much to those who have championed the unborn as the Jesus championed the cause of widows and orphans, those most needing our support and protection. This admonition for the family establishes a comprehensive network of aid within which all needs, young and old alike, can be satisfied. But it all starts with life.
The battle of words, of spin and semantics, has been exhausted. It is utterly void to continue a dialogue that seeks allowances for practicing something that is wrong. No more excuses. It is time to act. Faith2Action’s president, Janet Folger, makes the point painfully clear in her latest provoking commentary. After reading it, you’ll be convinced.
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Be Careful What You Hear
Posted by: Brent James on January 23, 2008 Hot Issues •
Whether this is your first presidential election or your 21st (it’s my eighth), please do your homework. Get as much information, from as many different (read, trusted) sources as possible. It would be easy to listen to a few networks or cable news shows and believe you have enough facts to vote. But it would be just as misleading.
The major news outlets can say anything they’d like and they do. Not that it’s correct, mind you. Case in point: A few weeks back, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were squaring off on the campaign trail, a mainstream news source attempted to manufacture controversy through inference. Bill O’Reilly makes the point rather well. Go here, then scroll down to ‘Opinion’ and click on ‘Talking Points’ dated 1/14.
Nothing new, of course, but it goes to show you that digging deep is your best course of action. Know thy candidate.
Believe me, it will sound pretty ignorant to be saying of your candidate some months from now, “Gee, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have voted for him.” Then, all the efforts you might have given to securing their election would be nullified as you spend more time fighting their policies.
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Who Starts This Stuff, Anyway?
Posted by: Brent James on January 23, 2008 Biblical Values •
Growing up, I believed that if an adult was on television, especially a polished news anchor, he was perfectly truthful. After all, he was telling us the news. What would he be lying about? Honestly, that is what I thought and I doubt you could’ve convinced me otherwise. My parents didn’t lie to me and I trusted them, so by extension, I afforded their broadcasting counterparts the same allegiance. As Wally Cleaver used to say, “Gee! What a goof!”
Today we call it ‘spinning’ because it gives us all an equal chance of adding our particular ‘slant’ without having to feel that we’ve done anything wrong. But, as believers, we know that some things are wrong even if they are not specifically referred to as such. We call it an ‘absolute’ or ‘law.’ But what happens when, by the whim of some official say, a law (or the enforcement of it) is temporarily suspended? The history of the Israelites is replete with such consequences. Lawlessness abounds.
Matthew 24:12 states, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” I don’t know about you, but that is not the society I want for my kids or me. Despite my wishes, it is already apparent in our nation.
When cities such as San Francisco or Boston host homosexual pride marches, their mayors waive enforcement of indecency laws and the participants joyfully violate them at will. How can law enforcement NOT enforce laws of that nature? I can understand suspending a handful of traffic laws to ease congestion, but nudity, public urination and lewdness? Would you vote for someone running for office that told you he would not enforce laws he did not like? How about someone believing that public indecency is sometimes acceptable?
Then there’s the police SWAT team in western Colorado that invaded a family’s home with guns drawn, demanding that the 11-year-old son, who had had an accidental fall, accompany them to the hospital. Talk about officials running amok with their authority.
In Wichita, Kansas, pastor Mark Holick was arrested for showing up at a homosexual festival to share Christ with the attendees. His church has also been threatened by the Internal Revenue Service for posting messages on its marquee dealing with the value of human life, based on dozens of Bible references.
Who starts this stuff anyway? Public officials that we elect to serve us, that’s who. This abuse comes from the top, down. If we are going to have a meaningful impact on this blatant disregard for the law then we must start at the ballot box.
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Political Candidates and Their Faith
Posted by: Richard Land on January 21, 2008 Featured Article •
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says, “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this constitution, but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” (emphasis added).
Our Founding Fathers prohibited that a person be a person of any particular faith or of no faith to hold public office or public trust in the United States. Instead, we are to select public officials based upon their character, their public policy record, their policy positions and their vision for our country.
In the famous speech delivered almost 50 years ago regarding his religious faith and his run for the White House, John F. Kennedy noted that while it was a Catholic who was the victim of suspicion in 1960, in other years it may be a Jew or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist who is targeted because of their faith.
Indeed, as Kennedy reminded the nation, it was the persecution of Baptists in 18th-century Virginia that inspired Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to pass the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. In other words, discrimination against a person of any faith opens the door to discrimination against people of all faiths.
While Gov. Mitt Romney has been criticized for his Mormon faith for some time, Gov. Mike Huckabee is the latest target. Huckabee has been criticized by feminist groups because while serving as governor of Arkansas, he and his wife endorsed statements, which appeared in USA Today and World magazine, affirming the Southern Baptist Convention’s confessional stance on the family.
In 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention added an article to its Baptist Faith and Message, the denomination’s confession of faith, addressing the family and marriage. At the time, the priests and priestesses of political correctness, those gurus who take it upon themselves to police what may and may not be said in American society, had a collective fit because the Southern Baptist Convention dared to say that a husband “is to love his wife as Christ loved the church” and a wife “is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband, even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
You may recall that most newspaper and news magazine editorialists were in a dither as well, printing cartoons portraying Southern Baptists as modern-day Neanderthals, with their knuckles dragging the ground, outfitted in animal skins, and with clubs clutched in their hirsute hands.
I have a somewhat unique perspective on this because I was a member of the committee asked to draft the article on the family for the convention’s consideration and approval in 1998. It is a very clear statement concerning what the Bible teaches about the family. The convention’s elected messengers, from their local churches all across the nation, meeting that year, interestingly enough, in Salt Lake City, overwhelmingly adopted the article on “The Family” as Article XVIII of its confessional statement.
In support, numerous prominent evangelical leaders from across the country endorsed a joint statement that asserted: “Southern Baptists, you are right. At a time when divorce is destroying the fabric of our society, you have taken a bold stand for the biblical principles for marriage and family life.” Now, several years later, these feminists are attacking Mike Huckabee, labeling him as anti-feminist and anti-woman because he signed this statement in support of the Baptist Faith and Message article on the family.
In his Dec. 6, 2007, speech (which Time magazine suggested may be “Romney’s Kennedy moment"), Governor Romney told the assembled crowd at the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, “A person who is running for political office should not be the chief spokesperson for his faith or his denomination in public life.”
If I had been advising Governor Romney, I would have told him to say, “Look, if you want to know what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes, call Salt Lake City. If you want to know what my values are, what my beliefs are, and how they influence my life, my character, my public service, my policies and my vision for America, call my office or go to my campaign’s Web site.”
If I were Mike Huckabee, I would say, “Listen, we don’t have a religious test for office. I am a Southern Baptist and I subscribe to the Southern Baptist Convention’s confession of faith. If you want to know what Southern Baptists believe, call a local Southern Baptist pastor or read the Baptist Faith and Message. If you want to know what my policy positions are, call my office or go to my website.”
Then I would challenge my feminist critics by saying, “You have no right to accuse me of being anti-woman, for exercising my constitutionally protected right to free expression of my faith in stating what I believe about God’s plan for the family. Unless you can find evidence of anti-woman bias in my public policy statements or my record as governor of Arkansas (and you will not find such evidence), then you are engaging in anti-religious bigotry by attacking me for expressing my beliefs about how husbands and wives ought to fulfill their roles in the voluntary relationship called marriage by some and holy matrimony by me.”
Just as then-Sen. Kennedy spent virtually no time defending Catholicism, but rather the right of a Catholic to run for the presidency, Gov. Huckabee and Gov. Romney should not spend time defending the religious beliefs of their respective faiths. Instead, as Kennedy did before them, they should affirm their right to run and to be judged on their records and their vision for the country’s future.
To ask Gov. Huckabee or Gov. Romney to explain and to defend the details of their personal faith IS a de facto religious test for office, and that is unconstitutional—and un-American. Mike Huckabee has said that he is a person of faith, that his faith defines him. That means his faith impacts his life, shapes his character, and guides him as he faces the crises and issues of life.
How his faith has molded his character, life and vision is fair game in political debate. The precise theological affirmations of his personal faith, however, are not proper subjects for debate, analysis or scrutiny as a candidate in a presidential campaign.
We have no religious test for office in this country. We don’t judge candidates on their faith or their lack of faith; we judge them on how their faith or their lack of faith impacts their lives, character, conscience, public policy positions and their vision for the country’s future.
While discussing this subject, a reporter asked me a provocative question: “Would you apply similar tests to the candidacy of a radical Islamist?”
“Yes, I would,” I responded. “I would not reject someone who was a follower of radical Islam because they were a follower of radical Islam; I would reject that person as a candidate for office because his radical Islamic faith impacts his character by telling him it is all right to kill people who disagree with him under certain circumstances. I would reject him because his faith gives him a vision for America as an Islamic republic that would stifle dissent, deny religious freedom, and make everyone who is not a Muslim a second-class citizen. So I wouldn’t be rejecting a Muslim based upon his radical Islamic faith, I would be rejecting him because of how his faith impacts his character, conscience, life and public policy positions.”
That is the way our Founding Fathers envisioned it to be, and that is the way it should be.
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Time to Think
Posted by: Brent James on January 18, 2008 Biblical Values •
Perhaps at no other time in our history will Americans have a more critical decision to make than that of electing a president this November. Among us, we Christians have an exclusive call to be salt and light to this to this generation and as such will set our country’s course (or ‘curse’ should we fail). This will require some homework and discernment, but not to fear, we have time and God gives us wisdom in full.
Daily news interviews feature voter reasoning that defies rationality. I shudder when I hear well-meaning citizens offering the strangest reasoning in support of their candidate. “He’s really a nice guy” or “She is really smart and cares about America.” I shudder even more hearing the reasoning of believers articulating their own musings along these lines. Shouldn’t logic and values go hand in hand? One would think.
One would also think that endorsements at this stage of the game would be few – especially among evangelical leaders. We should’ve learned from 2000 and 2004. It is still too early. Paul Weyrich and Pat Robertson have made amazing endorsements. Logic and faith are not mutually exclusive, yet many, including these men, have overlooked glaring differences between their values and those of the candidates they’ve endorsed. What does that say about our faith? Are we to make concessions on our beliefs in order to support someone who has a better ‘chance’ of winning?
Talk to anyone about this election and the big question becomes “Yeah, but can they win?” or “Are they really electable?” Should that be our standard for supporting a candidate? What chance did Gideon’s band have against an army of 130,000? What chance did Sampson have against 1000 Philistines or the Hebrew nation against Pharaoh’s chariots? We don’t work that way. We should vote the tenets of our faith and leave the results to God – not try to determine the outcome based on what looks outwardly promising minus a few concessions. Samuel would not have chosen David as king.
Dan Bartlett, a former Bush advisor, gave this analysis of Mike Huckabee’s problems as a candidate, “..having the last name ‘Huckabee’ you’ve got to be kidding me! Hope, Arkansas? Here we go again.” While saying Huckabee’s name is too ‘hick’ might make for amusing political banter, it lacks the faith component God requires. Before all this is over many strange and unusual twists will have played out.
Watch and be diligent. This process is our great privilege. Our hope is not the wishful kind. Ours is a hope of action.
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No Such Thing as Partisan?
Posted by: Brent James on January 17, 2008 Hot Issues •
For those Americans looking for strong, principled leadership from their representatives, the last couple of years have been quite disappointing. Yes, that goes for leadership from either side of the aisle. Principle is neither a creation nor the property of any political party, but stands alone. Very much alone at the interest of expediency.
The lament: Despite stark differences in their platforms, the Republicans and Democrats have recently shown themselves to govern much the same upon taking office. Maybe that’s why more Americans agree we should decentralize the corrupting power of the federal government. Maybe that’s why Congress’ approval rating is in the tank at 22% (recently at 14%, the lowest since 1973 when this Gallup initiated this measure).
Regarding the issues of the day, why this lack of bold leadership from our elected officials? Because leadership is characterized by wisdom and understanding – both gifts from the Creator to the righteous. Often people of faith liken political involvement to soiling ones clothes and therefore pay it little heed. That is certainly understandable given the current state of affairs in Washington, but government was established by God and has its place in society. It is a vehicle.
Of this vehicle John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” Those for whom the Constitution was created to govern must undergo a fundamental shift in their thinking as it relates to those who should lead. We can no longer elect unprincipled men to office. It’s just that simple.
I mean really, what do we expect of the wicked? To uphold a righteous standard? That is why God has not asked them to have a purifying influence on society. They can’t. Wholly inadequate.
Job 9:24 states, “When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he blindfolds its judges.”
Though Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” I was hoping he didn’t mean it would require three to four hours a day. What does it take to vote, 15 minutes? That’s a good start.
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