How I Trained My Dragon: A Morality Play on "The War on Terror"

Last Friday, Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed posted my review of How to Train Your Dragon.
I thought it was a fun movie and insightful on many levels. Here are my thoughts:

Friday Night at the Movies: How to Train Your Dragon
by Bob Robinson

In a thoroughly enjoyable, family-friendly movie, Dreamworks Animation has created a wonderfully entertaining, visually exciting movie. With How to Train Your Dragon, directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders provide thrills and laughter for all ages, but underneath the dazzling 3D effects hides a deeper, much more profound message.

The story is about a village of vikings who are terrorized by dragons. The film is filled with battle scenes where dragons destroy the vikings’ village and steal their livestock. The vikings have been fighting the dragons for generations. It has gotten to the point that the very identity of being a viking is tied directly to killing dragons.

The young hero of the story, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), is a wimpy kid trying to prove his worthiness as a viking to his father and leader of the vikings, Stoick (Gerard Butler), as well as to the dragon master Cobber (Craig Ferguson).

The most frightening and most despised dragon is the “Night Fury,” a dragon that has never been seen, who streaks over the village in the darkness and shoots deadly firebombs at buildings. Hiccup manufactures a gun in order to shoot down the Night Fury. It works, and after a search, he finds the Night Fury injured near a crater lake, trapped and unable to fly away.

He slowly gains the trust of the Night Fury dragon, names him “Toothless,” and even flies on the dragon’s back (in 3D, this was a marvelous ride!). Hiccup finds that the most feared dragon, the Night Fury, is actually as loving as a tame puppy.

The underlying message begins to shine through as Hiccup begins to doubt the endless war against the dragons. He begins to wonder if the vikings have been battling the dragons for so long and are so sure that they are heartless terrorists, that the vikings are perpetuating a war that may not be necessary. When Hiccup tells his father what he is discovering about this reality, his father is repulsed not only by the idea, but by his own son.

This movie brings our current “war on terrorism” into a new light. How have we so dehumanized our enemies that we see them as no more than animals – dragons – streaking across the sky with the intention of doing us harm?

I don’t want to give any more of the story away, but there comes a moment in the story when Hiccup understands the real reason why the dragons are doing what they are doing. With that realization, he is better able to think of and implement solutions to the conflict – better solutions than merely killing every dragon.

Jesus’ demand that Christians must love our enemies is a difficult command to follow. In real life situations, it is emotionally difficult to actually understand what our enemies are thinking, what motivates them to oppose us, and what we must do to reach out for the purpose of reconciliation. Sure, it is not simply forgiving and forgetting; it takes seriously the sins that were committed and seeks to tell the truth about those things. But the burden of peace and reconciliation is placed squarely on our shoulders.

However, the American way has often been to treat enemies as not worthy of understanding. We take the easy route far too often, simply deciding to fight rather than to understand, to hate rather than to love.

We need to ask hard questions, questions that our hardened hearts do not want to ask. What drives terrorists to do such atrocities? How can we provide possible solutions to these underlying causes? Are we doing all we can to understand the mind of our enemies? How can we overcome their animosity toward us? What are we doing to overcome their evil with good?

Glen Stassen and many others have been advocating “Just Peacemaking” as a means to overcome conflict. They say that a biblical way of seeking peace is when “adversaries listen to each other and experience each others' perspectives, including culture, spirituality, story, history and emotion.” To find peace, we are to “seek long-term solutions which help prevent future conflict,” and “seek justice as a core component for sustainable peace.”

It wasn’t until Hiccup understood the dragons’ perspective that he could figure out a long-term solution to the conflict between the vikings and the dragons. It wasn’t until Hiccup engaged his friends to seek justice for the dragons that a sustainable peace was found.

Appreciative Inquiry Evangelism: LISTENING

Back in 2007, I introduced a new way of doing evangelism, what I called "Appreciative Inquiry Evangelism (AIE)." Instead of starting out with the premise that each person we interact with is a sinner, AIE starts out with the premise that every human being is a wonderful creation, created as God's image-bearer. It does not deny the Fall and sinfulness; it just refuses to start our conversations there. The motivation of AIE is to appreciate people, affirming their past and present strengths and successes. AIE allows us to value people as human beings first rather than as merely possible candidates to become Christians. It looks at people with a different lens: instead of seeing people as inherently flawed, we see them with inherent potential.

AIE's purpose is to interact with people in order to help them explore and discover those potentialities and possibilities that God wants to flourish in them. We seek to introduce each person to the Redeemer of all things, Jesus Christ, who wants to restore each and every one of us to our image-bearing glory.

As I've been practicing AIE, I've found people to be more open to talking about God, Jesus, and purpose in the redemption found in Him.

Another major difference between AIE and other ways of doing evangelism that I've attempted is that it is based on listening instead of talking. We take ourselves out of the equation - it is not about what I can do in that person's life. We ask questions, seeking to understand what God is already doing in a person's life.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us of how important this is:

__"The first service that one owes to others... consists in listening to them.
__Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening...
__Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they would share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God." (Life Together, pp. 97-99)

Should Christians Pay Taxes After Obamacare? What about Government-Sanctioned Torture?

Albert Mohler, conservative Christian commentator (both theologically and politically), wrote an article the other day entitled, "Render Unto Caesar? On Paying Taxes After Obamacare."

__A significant number of Christians are now wondering about the moral implications of the Obama health care overhaul...
__So, should Christians defy the government and refuse to pay taxes if some involvement in abortion is almost certain? The answer to that question reaches far beyond the issue of abortion — and far beyond the question of taxation. The answer to that question must be "no."

Mohler then makes the biblical case that even when our government takes taxes for things we find reprehensible, Christians are obligated to pay them. He cites Romans 13, 1 Peter 2:13-14, and Mark 12:17 ("Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.")

He ends the commentary with this:

__Abortion is a moral catastrophe. The murder of the unborn is one of the greatest sins any society can tolerate, much less subsidize by taxation. The impact of the new “Obamacare” health care legislation is not yet fully clear, but the legislation lacks any adequate protection for the unborn. Immorality is added to immorality when the power of the government to tax and confiscate the funds of citizens is involved in such a catastrophe.
__For this reason, Christian citizens should be involved at every level in the political process, seeking to use legitimate means to establish full protection for the unborn and for all other vulnerable persons. Elections have consequences, and this new legislation is a reminder of the power of government to do both good and evil.
__But to refuse to pay taxes is to deny the legitimacy of the government itself, and to declare it beyond political remedy. Even to Christians suffering under the repressive, murderous, and dictatorial yoke of Rome, Jesus instructed the payment of taxes. Caesar, Christ knew, will one day face the judgment of Almighty God. Rome would one day be brought under his own feet and made subject to him.
__We do not “render unto Caesar” because of our confidence in Caesar. We render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, because we are committed with our lives and confidence and consciences to render unto God that which is God’s.

I fully agree with Mohler's reasoning for our obligation to pay taxes, as well as his concerns about how the new legislation may allow for the subsidizing of abortions through our tax dollars.

But what troubles me is that what prompted Mohler to write about the Christian obligation to pay taxes was the passing of the Health Care Reform Bill (what Mohler derogatorily called "Obamacare"). He started his commentary with, "A significant number of Christians are now wondering about the moral implications of the Obama health care overhaul."

During the Bush presidency, why weren't a "significant number of Christians" writing to Mohler concerned about how their tax dollars were being used by the government to torture people?

I credit Mohler for siding with John McCain on his push for an amendment banning torture to a Defense Authorization Bill back in 2005, rejecting Charles Krauthammer's argument that the hypothetical "ticking time bomb" scenario legitimizes the use of torture.

However, in 2007, Al Mohler (president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) sided with one of his ethics professors at the seminary, Daniel R. Heimbach, when he spoke out against the National Association of Evangelicals' statement against the use of torture. Mohler said, "I would argue that we cannot condone torture by codifying a list of exceptional situations in which techniques of torture might be legitimately used. At the same time, I would also argue that we cannot deny that there could exist circumstances in which such uses of torture might be made necessary.” (see the Baptist Press coverage of this story)

Could it really be true that Southern Baptists see torture as "necessary" and thus are okay with our tax dollars being used to do such atrocious acts, but are so angry about the health care bill that they don't want to pay taxes anymore?

If you are a Southern Baptist, I hope this doesn't reflect your values.

Anakainosis is Now Online

Anakainosis: A Newsletter for Reformational Thought is now on-line at All of Life Redeemed. Anakainosis was an "informal academic periodical published by the Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship in Toronto, Canada."

It was first published in Sept 1978 and continued until 1986. Each volume comprised four issues. It was first edited by Al Wolters. Subsequent editors included Henk Aay, Mark Roques, David Woods, Robert VanderVennen and Chris Gousmett. It contained articles, reviews and news updates from reformational scholars.

It also republished articles by Herman Dooyeweerd, Roy Clouser, Robert Knudsen, Troost, Danie Strauss and many other well-known scholars.

Anakainosis is a Greek word that means, "a renewal, renovation, complete change for the better."

Thanks, Steve Bishop, for this!

Is the iPad a Step Forward or a Step Backward?

In Time Magazine's review of the new Apple iPad, Lev Grossman writes a glowing endorsement for it. However, his last paragraph was what I found most intriguing, especially as it pertains to how the iPad can effect culture.

If I have a beef with the iPad, it's that while it's a lovely device for consuming content, it doesn't do much to facilitate its creation. The computer is the greatest all-purpose creativity tool since the pen. It put a music studio, a movie studio, a darkroom and a publishing house on everybody's desk.

The iPad shifts the emphasis from creating content to merely absorbing and manipulating it. It mutes you, turns you back into a passive consumer of other people's masterpieces. In that sense, it's a step backward.

Not much of a fairy-tale ending. Except for the people who are selling content.

Does the iPad threaten the advancements we've attained because of the PC Revolution?

To paraphrase Andy Crouch (in his must-read book, Culture Making), will the iPad motivate and empower the next generation to create culture or will it simply be an enabler for a generation to simply consume culture?

Why are Evangelicals so Afraid of the Holy Spirit?

He is the only source for our living lives that glorify God, but we are shy of Him.

I've just finished nearly three months studying Paul's letter to the Galatians. When we started out, we thought we had this letter figured out: It's about FREEDOM.

Freedom from legalism. Freedom from religious rules. Freedom to live lovingly. Freedom from a bondage to sin. Our theme for Galatians was Freedom in Christ! "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).

But as I studied this letter, something else started to creep into view. We can talk about freedom all we want but we will not be free until we realize the source of that freedom. We cannot experience true freedom unless we are empowered to be free. That source is the Holy Spirit.

And this is what evangelicals quickly skip over. But the Apostle Paul is clear that freedom comes only when we are fully yielded to the Holy Spirit. Sure, "freedom" is mentioned eight times in Galatians. But (get this!) the word that is translated the "Spirit" is found SEVENTEEN times!

Scot McKnight (NIV Application Commentary on Galatians) gives us an excellent overview of how prominent the Spirit is in Galatians:

(1) The Spirit of God is what the Christian receives at conversion (3:2, 3, 5, 14; 5:25), and this was evidently made known through charismatic experiences (see comments on 3:1–5). Such an experience makes the convert a “son of God” who can call God Abba (4:6). Indeed, the reception of the Spirit is what the entire Old Testament looked forward to as it came to fruition in the universal plan of God (3:13–14). To live in the Spirit is to live in the age when God inaugurates his kingdom.
(2) Those who are “in the Spirit” are persecuted by those in the “flesh” (3:4; 4:29).
(3) Those who are “in the Spirit” exercise hope for the coming establishment of God’s righteousness and their own declaration of fitness before God (5:5).
(4) Those who are “in the Spirit” are victorious over the “works of the flesh” (vv. 16–18, 19–21) and so live a life full of the manifestation of the Spirit (vv. 22–23). For this victory to occur, Christians need only submit to, or walk in step with, the Spirit (v. 25; cf. 6:8).

Galatians is about the Holy Spirit. And yet, we miss it. We evangelicals think we can live the Christian life by following our evangelical rules.

McKnight is so bold to say this:

“I know of no Christian parents or youth leaders, or for that matter any pastors, who seriously believe what Paul teaches in Galatians 5:16–26, that the sole foundation of Christian ethics is dependency on the Spirit and a life of freedom in the Spirit.”

What do you think? Do we really, really believe that all we need is the Holy Spirit to be holy, to live in harmony with others, to overcome the sinful nature, and to act righteously and justly in the world?

Most of us would say, “Sure!” But the reality is this: We don’t really trust this. Instead, we come up with rules of conduct, we tell our people how they should act, we make a list of things that either places people with the “in crowd” or casts people out because they are not “Christian enough.”

But Paul insists that all those externalities are useless to bring about godliness. The only thing that works is a completely yielding to the Spirit of God. Freedom from sin only comes from the inside out. True freedom is the result of God's Spirit producing fruit in his people - this is not through our own effort, but through the power of God. All we need to do is "walk in step with the Spirit."

Paul basically places the acts of the sinful nature in the same box as the Law and also the rules that Christians come up with to make themselves holy (in the Galatians' case, the Judaizers were seeking to force Gentiles to be circumcised). This is the life "in the flesh," which leads to bondage. But Paul says that a new era has begun in Christ, the life controlled by the Holy Spirit. When God takes over, he produces the fruit of the Spirit, allowing us to love like we should, live in harmony with others, rise above our sinful nature, and move toward the promise of Resurrection.

Here, then, is the chart I made for my group to guide our discussions, and I pray, our lives.

(click on thumbnail for full image)

Does Your Politics Cause You to Sin?

"Hell No!" ...oops.

I've been teaching Galatians for the past three months to my sub-congregation at church. More on that in a later post. But in the midst of my blog's focus recently on our country's political bickering over health care, and whether or not "Social Justice" is evil code for socialism (along with all the other fun from Glenn Beck), a quote from Scot McKnight's commentary on Galatians jumped out at me:

Paul says literally (in Galatians 515): “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Technically, Paul could have said: “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, you will be destroyed by each other.” The addition of “watch out for” puts emphasis, emotionally, on the sin. The problem of the Galatians is typically human: egos enter into the debates between people and before long the issue is who is going to win; it becomes who is right, not what is right.

This was a reminder to me, a sinner, that what's important in having fellowship with Christians is to have civility in our debates. The "typical human" problem for all of us is this: More important than humbly seeking "what is right," is to be the one "who is right."

This, sadly, is one of the worst besetting sins of evangelicals (of whom I am one). We are so enamored with being right that we do not listen to others' insights, especially if we have successfully labeled them in a category that we can dismiss outright.

If you can label people something that disparages them, you can go ahead and devour them with your words. This comes from both sides of the political spectrum, which uses terms like these:

• "liberal" or "fundamentalist,"
  
• "radical gay agenda" or "homophobe,"
• "baby killer" or "anti-choice,"
• "socialist" or "obstructionist."

I'm sure you can add to this list.

I certainly do not expect our politicians and cable news pundits to live up to Christian virtue in their dealing with their opposition (even those that confess a Christian faith have showed that their hypocrisy is the norm, not the exception). It is readily apparent that what is more important to politicians in today's contentious congress is that they oppose the opposite party, instead of seeking what is right, they want to be seen as who is right (and I'm talking about both the Republicans and the Democrats here).

But in the fellowship of Christians, as we discuss the important issues of our day, we need to be careful of how we treat each other.

We need to check our egos at the door, decide to humbly enter into dialog, and (even while holding fast to our convictions) be willing to accept that, yes, at times, we may need to change our minds. Can we let go of our need to be right all the time?

Stupak votes for Health Care Bill After Being Promised an Executive Order Banning Abortion Funding

The Democratic effort to secure the 216 votes needed for passage of the legislation came together only after last-minute negotiations involving the White House, the House leadership and a group of Democratic opponents of abortion rights, led by Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan. On Sunday afternoon, members of the group announced that they would support the legislation after Mr. Obama promised to issue an executive order to “ensure that federal funds are not used for abortion services.”

Mr. Stupak described the order as a significant guarantee that would “protect the sanctity of life in health care reform.” But supporters of abortion rights — and some opponents — said the order merely reaffirmed what was in the bill.

- New York Times, "House Approves Health Overhaul, Sending Landmark Bill to Obama"

UPDATE:
Pro-abortion lobbies ‘incensed’ at Stupak deal to pass health care
by Catholic News Agency Mar 21, 2010

Leading pro-abortion groups such as the National Organization of Women (NOW), Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America have harshly criticized President Obama’s decision to issue an executive order to reassure pro-life Democrats that there would be no federal funding for abortion.

The executive order was published by the White House minutes before Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) announced that he and his bloc of pro-life Democrats would be providing the missing votes to allow the health care bill to pass Sunday evening by a 219-212 margin.

During his press conference, Stupak noted there were only 45 votes in the Senate for his language. “We would all love to have a statute that would be stronger. We can’t get sixty votes in the Senate. The reality is we can’t do it.”

“This bill was going to go through,” Stupak said, saying he believed backers of the Senate bill had enough House votes before he and his pro-life colleagues decided to support the legislation.

To protect the sanctity of life, Stupak said, his coalition went for the “best enforceable” option and settled for the President’s executive order.

The order reads: “it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment.”

The executive order requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to draw up in six months’ time a set of guidelines which states must follow to ensure that federal funds don’t pay for abortion coverage. Any such coverage under the state insurance exchanges to be created would have to be paid for by the person insured.

Before the executive order was announced, NOW, NARAL and Planned Parenthood had felt comfortable with the language of the Senate bill...

...Stupak’s successful pressuring of the president to promise an executive order drew a harsh reaction from the leading pro-abortion groups on Sunday afternoon.

“We are incensed by Obama’s executive order designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women's access to abortion,” said NOW President Terry O'Neill in a statement emailed to reporters.

“Contrary to language in the draft of the executive order and repeated assertions in the news, the Hyde Amendment is not settled law -- it is an illegitimate tack-on to an annual must-pass appropriations bill. NOW has a longstanding objection to Hyde and, in fact, was looking forward to working with this president and Congress to bring an end to these restrictions. We see now that we have our work cut out for us far beyond what we ever anticipated. The message we have received today is that it is acceptable to negotiate health care on the backs of women, and we couldn't disagree more,” O’Neill said.

UPDATE #2:
Why the Executive Order Does Not Prevent Taxpayer Funded Abortion
by the Legal Staff of Americans United for Life, March 21, 2010

The White House’s proposed executive order to “deal” with the abortion problems in the Senate health care reform bill reveals that the President will not even attempt to ensure that there is no federal funding for abortion or mandates for abortion coverage in the bill.

The first section of the proposed executive order provides that that “it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism” to prevent federal funding for abortions “consistent with . . . the Hyde amendment.” While this acknowledges that the Senate bill is not consistent with the Hyde amendment, the language of the executive order fails to describe accurately and to mirror the scope of the Hyde Amendment.

While the Hyde Amendment comprehensively prohibits the use of all federal funding that flows through Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) appropriations for both abortion and insurance plans that cover abortions, the Senate health care bill does not. The executive order does not remedy this problem. First, the executive order only addresses the insurance exchanges (section 2) and the Community Health Center (CHC) funding (section 3). In other words, the executive order still leaves open the possibility that other funds authorized or appropriated through the bill could be used to directly pay for abortions.

Second, while the executive order addresses the insurance exchanges, it utterly fails to apply Hyde to them. Section 2 of the order provides guidelines for “strict compliance” with the provisions in the bill that address how federal subsidies are handled in plans that cover abortions in the exchanges. However, these guidelines do nothing to prevent federal subsidies from going to plans that cover abortions, which directly violates federal principles embodied in the Hyde Amendment and other federal laws, including the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

Glenn Beck: American Progressivism = Socialism

No, it isn’t. It is actually American Individualism to the Max

Contrary to what Beck would seek to lead his viewers to believe, the driving force behind progressivism has not been communitarianism (i.e., what he calls socialism), but a very individualistic understanding of liberty.

The technical term for the political ideology that exalts the sovereignty of the individual is “Liberalism.” Liberalism, as classically construed, contains both the “conservative” and “liberal” ends of American politics, for both of these have, as their central tenant, the personal liberty of the individual.

As David Koyzis writes in his excellent book, Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (2003, IVP),

__“Today, we Westerners live in a world where it is taken for granted that people cannot enslave other people, that people can practice their respective faiths without harassment, and that intellectuals can promote controversial ideas without fear of at least legal if not social reprisals. All of these are the ripe fruit of liberalism, whose positive side cannot be denied. So thoroughly has this liberalism come to suffuse our political culture, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, that virtually all of us can be said to be liberals in some sense, even if we explicitly repudiate the label.” (pp. 44-45)

But the Liberal political ideology (i.e., of individual liberty) also has its flaws, according to Koyzis.

__“It is not only unable to account for the ontological status of community; it also ignores the connectedness of individuals to previous and succeeding generations. It pretends the individual is an isolated runner in the race, whose success of failure depends wholly on herself.

__“When it becomes apparent that this is not the case—that is, when liberals bump up against reality—they are often driven to pursue policies quite at variance with classical liberalism’s initial antistatist orientation."

The reason that the “Progressives” (like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, and Lyndon Johnson - all the people that people like Glenn Beck say they "hate") initiated changes was not because that they were “socialists” but because they believed in individual liberty.

What they were actually trying to do was subsidize people's ability to make personal choices. For instance, "children growing up in the south Bronx or the west side of Chicago lack the sorts of opportunities available to the child raised in suburban New Rochelle or Oak Park. If life is indeed a game, then the contestants have by no means got an equal start. Some have taken off from the starting gate with an extra advantage... Given their heightened sense of fair play, liberals seem driven to reexamine the rules of the game if some contestants are unjustly handicapped from the outset" (Koyzis, p. 59). The desire of American individualistic political theory is for each individual to get a "fair shake," an equal opportunity to the American dream. This is why the welfare state came into existence - it was an attempt to give individuals their liberty from the unfairness of what they inherited from their parents.

Koyzis shows that Beck's equation of today's progressive politicians to socialists is not quite right.

__“It is perhaps one of history’s ironies that liberals came to be identified with government programs so thoroughly that in North America the ‘liberal’ label is almost always used to describe someone favoring the expansion of the welfare state to ensure greater economic equality. Elsewhere in the Western world such policies are usually labeled ‘social democratic,’ thus indicating a connection to socialism. It must be noted, however, that while socialists might favor the welfare state for distinctly communitarian reasons, liberals favor it for basically individualistic reasons. The welfare state is simply a means to enhance and expand the range of free choices available to the individual, not a weapon of class warfare.”

The Classical Liberals of Glenn Beck's ilk are responding to the expansion of government by the New Liberals by espousing that we revert back to an unregulated free market (what Koyzis calls the "Night Watchman State" - see my last post). But Koyzis has these wise words for us:

__"However, the classical liberal response to the bloated state...is fundamentally inadequate because it seeks merely to reverse a lengthy - and possibly inevitable, given liberalism's presuppositions - historical process, rather than to question in the first place liberalism's reduction of the state to a mere voluntary organization charged only with fulfilling the shifting terms of the social contract."

__"There is a seemingly vast distance between the classical liberal night watchman state and the late liberal bureaucratic state undertaking to subsidize freedom of choice. Yet what they have in common is that both are reducible to the aggregative wills of their constituent members. To the extent that this is so, liberals are unable to recognize the state to be essentially different from the church, the school, the business enterprise, the labor union, or the amateur baseball team. In this vision government exists not so much to adjudicate properly the multiple diverse interests in society, as to fulfill the aspirations of individuals, whatever form these may take at a given historical moment." (pp. 64-65)

Is “Progressive” as evil as Glenn Beck makes it to be?

Glenn Beck: “We’re declaring war on the progressive movement.”

Beck’s latest move has been to tap into the fear that radical conservatives have of change. He wants his audience to see anyone but those in the Tea Party Movement as dangerous because they want to change things, they want to “progress.” He has said on numerous occasions that he sees the “progressive movement” as a “cancer” that is eating away at both political parties. He says that his war is not just against Obama, but against what Obama epitomizes – the whole progressive movement. He contends that his viewers should fight for getting America back to the way the country was originally founded, when individual liberty meant a limited government that stayed out of people’s lives.

It all sounds so easy: Let’s go back to better times. Let’s reverse the trend of progressivism.

Beck wants to go back to the beginning of the country, when private liberty was based on limited government and a totally free market.

The United States was founded as an experiment in John Locke’s ideas concerning the State. Thomas Jefferson’s words in the first part of the Declaration of Independence are almost a paraphrase of Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government. The idea was a simple one: Individual liberty. Every individual has the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” A government needed to be established that did not curtail these rights. The United States Constitution was written for this purpose.

The right to private liberty was intimately connected to the right to private property. Here was a very progressive idea in its time: that every person has the right to private property. The American value of individual property rights was a major progressive development from previous feudal systems, and even a progression on the earlier Hobbesian view of the Commonwealth. Therefore, this new idea of individual liberty mandated that the government’s main task was to provide the security needed for individuals to own their own possessions. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (written the same year as Jefferson penned the Declaration) laid out the economic implications of John Locke’s individual liberty: a capitalistic market of unrestricted free competition, a market in which the government must not interfere.

This was a major part of why there was an American Revolution: The colonists desired to be free from the British Mercantile System, in which England provided manufactured goods in return for taxes and raw materials from the colonies. With the American experiment in individual property rights, England’s monopolist East India Company could now be in competition with innovative privately owned companies.

The Free Market brought about the Industrial Revolution. The benefits of this progression of Capitalism included the advent of the factory system, mass production, and of mind-boggling inventions. Goods could be created much more efficiently and at lower costs.

But the ideals of Private Liberty were at risk as well. As a result of an unregulated Free Market, the economy was ruled by a few large companies with their urban factories filled with workers who were paid small wages and worked long hours. At this time, the evolutionary ideas of Darwin moved from biology into economics – that it is appropriate for the economically fittest to survive, and everyone else should rightfully perish. Because of the ruthlessness of the free market, members of the working class who had entrepreneurial dreams did not have a chance to get started while smaller, family owned businesses were at risk.

Ironically, the dream of the being freed from the evils of the Mercantile System (where monopolies were protected by the King) led into something very similar to it. The “Robber Barons” like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt had manipulated the economic system and in the process effectively curtailed the private liberty of the American citizenry.

This led the nation to begin regulating business for the common good.

Questions:

• Without "Progressive" ideas, would the United States even exist?
• In what ways does the idea of "Individual Liberty" have shortcomings?
• As I understand Beck, he wants the United States to revert back to this age of American history. What problems did we experience then, and why would we want to relive those days again?

Do Not Pledge Allegiance to a Political Party

“(We can) understand why the apostles were subjected to torture and imprisonment by the powers-that-be: they were ambassadors of a rival king, acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar precisely because they had pledged allegiance to another king (Acts 17:7). The gospel that Paul preached was politically subversive…

“The gospel that Paul preached was not a message about some private, interior transformation of the heart. It was a message about a new allegiance to a King-in-waiting. As such, there was something radically political about the gospel—which didn't mean, of course, that Christians sided with a political party. In fact, there was a sense in which Christians, who pledge allegiance to a resurrected King, could never find themselves at home with any party of the empire.”

-James K. A. Smith
"Christian Worship as Public Disturbance" from The Devil Reads Derrida and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts, pp. 71-77

Senate Health Care Reform Bill is Not Good Enough

Senate Bill is Not Explicit Enough About Abortion Funding

So, the Senate Health Care Bill is going to be reconciled with the House Bill. But there's a problem. The Senate Bill does not have the same language as the House Bill, which has the Stupak Amendment in it explicitly keeping federal funds from paying for abortions.

The majority of Democrats are trying to tell us that the Senate Bill reflects the Hyde Amendment (Hyde is not a permanent law, but a rider that must be passed each year to bar the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services from appropriating funds toward abortions). But the fact is this: our tax dollars will be used to pay for health plans that cover abortions under the Senate health care reform bill.

Our tax dollars must not pay for that which violates the consciences of so many American citizens. We should not have to pay for another person’s choice to have an abortion. However, that is exactly what happens when pro-life individuals must pay into an insurance plan that covers abortions.

Sure, the might appear that my tax dollars are not paying for abortions, but in reality, I am going to be subsidizing insurance plans that cover abortions, a radical departure from the Hyde Amendment, which explicitly prohibits the use of federal funds to support plans that provide abortion. It has been a long-held understanding that subsidizing plans that provide abortion is tantamount to supporting abortion with federal funds.

Here's a helpful chart of how the funding in the Senate Bill works:

(click on image for pdf of chart)

Call and write your Representative today! (follow this link to find your Representative)
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Glenn Beck: If Your Church Teaches "Social Justice," Leave It.

I guess Glenn Beck is ignorant of the biblical truth that Christ's redemptive plan is for all aspects of the fallen world, including bringing social and economic justice to it. But as an evangelical, I must stand up and say, "NO!" to his latest tirades against churches that teach that Social Justice is a major part of why we exist.

I feel strongly about this, especially since so many evangelicals listen and watch Glenn Beck and seem to agree with him most of the time. I fear that in the coming weeks and months, when pastors seek to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and lead their congregations toward a renewed sense of call toward social justice, it will not be politically correct because of the insidious ideas that Beck has been telling those that attend our churches.

Beck believes that words like "Social Justice" and "Economic Justice" are "code words" for Communist and/or Nazi ideas that will take over the country. No, they are biblical concepts that we must not allow the likes of Beck to distort and malign.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that Christians engage in justice issues. As members of the Kingdom of God, we seek to cooperate with our Lord and Savior to bring God's kingdom values into this fallen world, bringing redemption to all of society's fallenness - serving individuals to help them find the righteousness offered by Christ, as well as serving society to bring about social justice. This is the fullness of the redemption that Christ offers in the New Creation, initiated with his death and resurrection. This is the "Gospel of the Kingdom of God" that Jesus taught.

Now, listen to what Beck said last week:

__"I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can! Social justice and economic justice, they are code words... Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes. If I am going to Jeremiah Wright's church - Yes! Leave your church. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me - are you down with this whole social justice thing?' I don't care what the church is - If it is my church, I'm alerting the church authorities, 'Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'Yea, we're all in that social justice thing,' I'm in the wrong place."

Beck then went on to compare these churches' desire for social justice to the evils of Communism and Nazism.

Listen to his remarks from the radio program here:


Later, on his Fox News program, he explicitly equated Communism and Nazism with Social Justice.

This cannot go unchallenged. And it hasn't. Roman Catholics have found his words offensive. Joe Carter at First Things wrote,

__"Although many Protestant denominations express concerns about social justice, the term is most closely associated with the social teachings of the Catholic Church. A Jesuit priest, Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio, coined the term in the 1840s and based the concept on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.
__According to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 'a large part of the Church’s social teaching is solicited and determined by important social questions, to which social justice is the proper answer.' Social justice is even given a section in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
__Could Beck’s claim be construed as 'anti-Catholic?' Yes and no. I think if anyone else had made the remark it would have been hard to dismiss the anti-Catholic undertones. But Beck is a special case: He is too prone to say any dumb thing that pops into his head and too ignorant about history and religion to truly understand the implications of his statement. This doesn’t excuse him, of course, but it certainly is reason not to be too shocked when a self-professed 'rodeo clown' advises people to leave their churches over Catholic 'code words' like social justice.
__Still, I’m curious to see how Beck’s loyal defenders will excuse his latest outrageous remarks. If we’re not supposed to take him seriously when he says stuff like this, when exactly are we to take him seriously?"

And James Martin, SJ, wrote in Amercia: The National Catholic Weekly,

__"Social justice is an essential part of Catholic teaching. It's part of being a Catholic. So Glenn Beck is, in essence, saying 'Leave the Catholic church.' Or, if you like, the Catholic church is a Nazi church. (Which would have surprised Alfred Delp, Rupert Mayer and Maximilian Kolbe.) Or a Communist one. (Which would have suprised Jerzy Popieluszko and Karol Wojtyla).
__But Glenn Beck is saying something else, which might get lost in the translation: Leave Christianity. Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus points to our responsibility to care for the poor, to work on their behalf, to stand with them. In fact, when asked how his followers would be judged, Jesus doesn’t say that it will be based on where you worship, or how you pray, or how often you go to church, or even what political party you believe in. He says something quite different: It depends on how you treat the poor."

Evangelicals should be upset with Glenn Beck as well. We should shout "AMEN" in agreement with James Martin. Social Justice is not just Catholic teaching; it is biblical teaching. Check out what Scot McKnight just wrote in response to Glenn Beck:

__I find these sorts of statements so far from an awareness of Jesus (not to mention John the Baptist), so I post here the first words of Jesus in public preaching. This passage can't be read without thinking Jesus was here to bring justice. After the jump, I've got John's words, which have to be seen as some form of voluntary economic sharing as a form of creating justice.
__But instead of turning back kind for kind, we shall commit ourselves all the more to telling the truth of the gospel and urge churches to make sure, because of their commitment to following Jesus, their website does mention justice.

Jesus:
Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and the regaining of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to tell them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read." All were speaking well of him, and were amazed at the gracious words coming out of his mouth. They said, "Isn't this Joseph's son?" Jesus said to them, "No doubt you will quote to me the proverb, 'Physician, heal yourself!' and say, 'What we have heard that you did in Capernaum, do here in your hometown too.'" And he added, "I tell you the truth, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's days, when the sky was shut up three and a half years, and there was a great famine over all the land. Yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to a woman who was a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, yet none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, forced him out of the town, and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way. (Luke 4:16-30)

John the Baptist:
So the crowds were asking him, "What then should we do?" John answered them, "The person who has two tunics must share with the person who has none, and the person who has food must do likewise." Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He told them, "Collect no more than you are required to." Then some soldiers also asked him, "And as for us - what should we do?" He told them, "Take money from no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your pay." (Luke 3:10-14)

I have my own beefs with the word "social" with justice, thinking it too often gets lumped with the US Constitution, but all justice will manifest itself in social and economic ways.

Jim Wallis, a representative of the politically left side of evangelicalism, wrote,

__"Of course, Christians may disagree about what social justice means in our current political context -- and that conversation is an important one -- but the Bible is clear: from the Mosaic law of Jubilee, to the Hebrew prophets, to Jesus Christ, social justice is an integral part of God's plan for humanity.
__Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches, so I say Christians should leave Glenn Beck."

And don't forget that, as I've been writing here at Vanguard Church, that Glenn Beck is a Mormon. He said, "If it is my church, I'm alerting the church authorities, 'Excuse me, what's with this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'Yea, we're all in that social justice thing,' I'm in the wrong place."

Well, here you go, Glenn (courtesy of a Mormon who invites you to leave his church):

__"Being that I happen to be a devout member of Glenn Beck's faith (yeah, there are Mormons out there who are embarrassed to death by Beck) I thought we ought to apply Beck's "socialist" "communist" "progressive" litmus test to the Mormon faith itself.
"It is unfortunate that it is taking so long to bring full ECONOMIC JUSTICE to women. The feminization of poverty is both real and tragic. That is why you should work very hard to prepare for your future by gaining some marketable skills." ~James E Faust, Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, September, 1986 (Link can be found here).

__And let's not forget President Thomas S. Monson, the current president of the Mormon Church who created a 4th official mission for the church: "Care for the Needy."

"This can only be a positive...to bring SOCIAL JUSTICE to those in need." (Link here).

__And let us not forget some of the teachings of the Book of Mormon itself:
__From the Book of Alma 1: 27-28, 30:
__“And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely. __And thus they did establish the affairs of the church; and thus they began to have continual peace again, notwithstanding all their persecutions. __And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need.”

And Mosiah 4: 16-19:
__And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish. __Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just— __But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God. __For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?”

HT: John Fea

GiftCardGiver.com - A Great New Way to Help the Needy

The Gift Card industry has risen to be a 60 billion dollar industry. Ever wonder how many gift cards are unused?

More than 10%!

That means billions of dollars are waiting to be used for good on Gift Cards.

"How many gift cards do you have sitting in your wallet? We guess you have at least $5 of unused gift cards in your wallet or purse right now. What’s 5 bucks going to buy you? Five bucks in Gift Cards may buy you a pair of socks…but 10 people giving 5 bucks will buy a kid a winter coat or 1000 people giving $5 from may give that same kid a warm bedroom to sleep through the night."

It is very simple to get involved:

• STEP 1: Use as much of your card as you want (or send a full card).
• STEP 2: Write how much is left on your card using a permanent marker.
• STEP 3: Place the card in an envelope and send it to us at:

Gift Card Giver
PO Box 17628
Atlanta, GA 30316
or
750 Glenwood Ave
Atlanta, GA 30316

The folks at Gift Card Giver collect and distribute the cards to appropriate Non-Profit Organizations that can use those cards to help others. This is a grass roots campaign that has created a new form of giving and you are an important piece to the idea coming to life.

Linda and I are planning to have a "CARD PARTY," where everyone gets "carded" to get into the door. Every house party is simple and you can make it unique, you can do it for a birthday party, church function, or just a fun night of games.

FIND OUT MORE at giftcardgiver.com