Eric Metaxas: “So who do we say is not fully human today?”

I just finished reading Eric Metaxas’ ebook, Jesus Hates Dead Religion: Bonhoeffer, Wilberforce, and the Power of Living Faith (2012-05-28: Thomas Nelson, Kindle Edition. Available through iTunes or Amazon.com). I highly recommend purchasing and reading this ebook. It is well written, humorous, and insightful. In this book, Metaxas records his experiences leading up to and giving the keynote speech at the Sixtieth Annual National Prayer Breakfast attended by President Obama and other important dignitaries. I enjoyed his sense of humor, which is found throughout the book, and I especially appreciated the insights he offered in his keynote address.

Some of these insights concern the characteristics of a dead religion. One such insight is:
“When he [Jesus] was tempted in the desert, who was the one throwing Bible verses at him? Satan. That is a perfect picture of dead religion. Using the words of God to do the opposite of what God does. It is grotesque, when you think about it. It is demonic” (Kindle Locations 547-549).

Excellent insight! The Bible is God’s Word of life (John 10:10), because on our own without Christ, we are already condemned (John 3:16-18).

Likewise, Metaxas noted,
“Now, of course, dead religion demonizes others… And apart from God’s intervention, that is what we do. So don’t think you won’t do that. You will do that. We are broken, fallen, human beings. Apart from God, that is what we do”  (Kindle Locations 647-649).
This is so true. Therefore, he continued,
“We need to know that apart from God, we would be on the other side of that divide, fighting for what we believe is right. We cannot demonize our enemies. Today if you believe abortion is wrong, you
must treat those on the other side with the love of Jesus.
“Today, if you have a biblical view of sexuality, you will be demonized by those on the other side, who will call you a bigot. Jesus commands us to love those who call us bigots. To show them the love of Jesus. If you want people to treat you with dignity, treat them with dignity.
“So finally, Jesus tells us that we must love our enemies. That, my friends, is the real difference between dead religion and a living faith in the God of the Scriptures, whether we can love our enemies” (Kindle Locations 657-663).

God help me to love those who demonize me. It is not natural to love this way (Romans 5: 7-8). I fail at this all the time. This is why I am encouraged by Metaxas’ words.

He went on to ask a critical question for our day,
“So who do we say is not fully human today? Who is expendable to us?” (Kindle Locations 615-616).

The answer one gives to this question often depends upon one’s political views and personal experiences. However, Metaxas did not retreat into a subjective understanding of truth. Indeed, he talked about William Wilberforce and his allies who fought the culture of their day, characterized by dead Christian religion, to end the slave trade and slavery throughout the British Empire. He said,
“Now how did they see what they saw? There is just one word that will answer that. It is Jesus. He opens our eyes to his ideas, which are different from our own, which are radical. Now personally I would say the same thing about the unborn, that apart from God, we cannot see that they are persons as well.” (Kindle Locations 653-656).

Are the unborn only a mass of cells? Empirically, human life is defined biologically, and the unborn do not initially qualify in a pregnancy. Are humans more than their physical bodies? How we answer this question depends on our views of existence.

Naturalism is one such view that limits all of life and existence to the physical realm. Such view sees the story of a Creator-Redeemer as magic and myth. Yet, for those of us who believe in the Prodigal God (see Timothy Keller’s book, The Prodigal God), there is so much more to existence than the physical realm, and yet, the physical realm is not rejected.

Indeed, human life cannot be understood fully without understanding Jesus as He is: God, the Creator-Redeemer (John 1:1-4). Without Jesus, we find ourselves defining human life through the eyes of our own limited understanding. This is why the radical Christians of Wilberforce’s days could not stand idly by while Africans were physically tortured and treated as sub-human. Metaxas notes that adherents to dead religion opposed them. He notes,
“Wilberforce took these ideas—these foreign ideas from the Bible—and brought them into culture... Because he believed what the Bible said and because he obeyed what God told him to do, Wilberforce changed the world” (Kindle Locations 606-609).

I find it ironic that ideas from the Bible can be foreign to those who called themselves “Christian.”

Jesus Hates Dead Religion is a book that speaks to me so much because I am not a religious person naturally. I cannot stand religion for its own sake, such as religion for an emotional feeling or about obligation, all of which is dead religion. God speaks to this in Isaiah 44:13-17:

“The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, ‘Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!’ And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god!’“
• The Holy Bible English Standard Version (ESV) (Kindle Locations 28809-28816). Crossway Bibles (2011-02-09). Kindle Edition.

We take the physical world and mold it to our use, often abusing it, and then claim it is the origin of our existence. This view is too limited, too subjective, and too indulgent. Such a god is too small! Only the eternal God can explain what it means to really live. All other ideas are idols of our own making to which we say, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”

Through the eyes of Jesus we can see the forms slavery takes on in the 21st century. It doesn’t look like African slavery of Wilberforce’s day, or like Nazi slavery that Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced. Yet, modern slavery has respectability like it did in those days.

So, I highly recommend reading this excellent ebook by Eric Metaxas!

A great quote about eternity...

This is a great and insightful quote:

"No human impulse is more fundamental than our desire to transcend time, and none argues better that time is not the medium for which we are finally meant."

• Eric Metaxas, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, p. 280.

The Real RINOS!

Where Are the Romney Republicans? - NYTimes.com

The above link takes you to an excellent article by Nicholas D. Kristof (The New York Times, Februrary 1, 2012) about the real history of the Republican Party. Today, people such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh often claim the Republican party has always been a conservative party. "Conservative" in this context means 21st century conservatism, which is primarily an anti-government ideology. Indeed, Glenn Beck often claims much of modern progressive liberalism goes back to Republican Theodore Roosevelt. Such men and women often call modern Republicans in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower "RINOs," or "Republicans In Name Only." Their stated goals is to get rid of so-called moderates in the party.

There are several problems with this view. The article, linked above, notes that traditionally, the Republican Party was not restricted to conservatives.  I'll go further: the Republican Party was the liberal party for most of its history. Civil Rights and Women's Rights were Republican causes, for example.

Furthermore, when pressed, many conservative commentators proudly state that they are conservatives first, and that the Republican Party is only a container for their activism. So, by their own words, they are "Republican In Name Only," the real RINOS.

Again, conservatives in the Republican party today are not ideologically compatible with Republican conservatives historically. Traditionally, Republican conservatives supported civil rights, women's rights, environmental conservation, policies which contemporary conservatives call extremist. Likewise, older conservatives like Robert Taft were more like contemporary Ron Paul Republicans in foreign policy: keep our troops here at home.

In reality, the traditional Republican Party was the national party, while the Democratic Party was the party of states rights. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt were accused of expanded the powers of the presidency beyond that called for in the US Constitution. Republicans were often criticized for expanding the role of the Federal government. Beck and Limbaugh dare not criticize Abraham Lincoln due to the reverence Americans give him, even though he was not a conservative by today's standards.

President Reagan, an ideological conservative, is often quoted by contemporary conservatives as saying "Government is not the solution to our problems. It is the problem." What he actually said is, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Reagan put the problem of big government in context of that time. Also, President Reagan supported and implemented amnesty for illegal aliens. This is something contemporary conservatives willingly ignore.

Conservatives used to stress the need for good government, believing it should be mainly at the local and state levels, with the Federal government having roles in national security, civil rights, and conservation. Today, too many conservatives just want less government indiscriminately. Liberals, also, used to stress the need for good government believing the national government should have a larger role in implementing public policy. Today, many liberals want more government as the solution to address more problems.

For many of us, it depends. Government is good at doing some things, and not so good at doing other things. Less government makes sense in some public policy areas, and a different government approach makes sense in other areas. The US Constitution must be followed in both cases, and character and competency must accompany ideology in politics.

By re-writing the history of the Republican Party, these real RINOs have more in common with George Orwell's "Big Brother" in 1984 , and thus, alienate many voters whose values are those of Lincoln, T Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and yes, even Reagan.

Newt Gingrich: Immoral or Amoral?

Newt Gingrich has won the Republican South Carolina Primary. Several weeks ago I was trying to summarize in my mind why I do not like the former Speaker of the House of Representatives as a political candidate. It then came to me: Newt Gingrich holds the political ideology of President Ronald Reagan, and the moral character of President Richard Nixon.

Ideologically, Newt is a conservative, but a forward thinking conservative. That is, he is not trying to stop progress. Rather, he is an idea man, and he wants to see these ideas become realities in the future. I can listen to Newt speak for hours because he has fascinating ideas with an interesting world-view. Like him, I love history, and value the works of authors such as Isaac Asimov. These are aspects of his ideology I find attractive, even though I am more moderate ideologically than the former Speaker.

My problem with candidate Newt Gingrich regards his character and credibility. Morally, he strikes me not so much as an immoral man as an amoral man, at least in his private life. He comes across to me as a man whose values are on the table and negotiable.

Nixon was like this. He was a proponent of civil rights and campaigned supporting such policies early in his political career. However, he later pursued a campaign strategy minimizing these values to appease White racists in the South, even though he implemented desegregationist policies in practice while president. Still, Nixon was faithful to his wife and family throughout his life. So, when I say Nixon’s character was amoral, this pertains to his political life, not his family life.

Nixon’s political life seems to correspond to Gingrich’s private life: amoral. Gingrich’s willingness to be unfaithful in his marriage is well known. He claims he knows he has “made mistakes” and has asked God for forgiveness. However, a “mistake” is something one does on an occasion. Gingrich’s infidelity is consistent: he is willing to compromise his values for personal gain when it is expedient.

What really bothers me, though, is Gingrich runs for office supporting “family values” and has even co-authored a book with his current wife called Rediscovering God in America (2009: Thomas Nelson). Yet, Christianity is not about actions alone. It is about God changing a person’s heart towards Him through Jesus, and as a result changing our heart towards our fellow human beings. As a result, repentance results in changing one’s character over time. I don’t see character change in Newt Gingrich. I do see a man who talks about repentance in legalistic terms rather than heart changing terms. Likewise, he talks about repentance in an almost dismissive way.

Likewise, what is not discussed in the press so much is his willingness to change religious affiliations as often as he changes wives, especially when it is politically beneficial (he was raised Lutheran, but converted to the Baptist faith when he ran for office in Georgia, and is now a convert to Roman Catholicism). Changing religious affiliations is not necessarily bad. Personally, I became a Presbyterian recently. What I find of interest is the motivation behind one's conversion. In Gingrich’s case, it comes across to me as being self-serving for his political career. It was beneficial to convert to the Baptist faith in Georgia, and now to convert to Roman Catholicism when running for president. I may be wrong about this, but this is the impression I get about him.

Ultimately, God is our judge because only He know the intentions of the human heart. He is merciful and forgives a multitude of sins. God especially loves a humble heart (see Micah ch. 6 vs. 8). We are all sinful, make mistakes, and have character problems (see Romans ch. 3 vs. 23-24). So, as a voter, I look for credibility rather than perfection in a candidate. My dislike for Newt Gingrich as a candidate is because he lacks credibility and humility regarding his "mistakes."

I am also bothered about his ability to be a competent executive. He was a legislator, not an executive, and has been criticized about his leadership of the House of Representatives by those who should be supporting him in his run for the Republican nomination.

So, I still predict President Obama will be re-elected this year, not because of his record, but because Republicans will likely nominate a poor candidate. President Obama is beatable, but only by a candidate who has ideals and credibility, and is competent to be president. Newt Gingrich has ideas, but lacks both credibility and competency.

The Republican Presidential Nominee - Iowa Debates

After watching the Republican presidential candidates debate in Iowa on ABC tonight, I am convinced the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party is for none of the current candidates to win enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination on the first ballot of the national convention. Then, the Republican delegates could choose someone who is not currently in the race to be the nominee, and thus, choose someone who has not been attacked either by the current Republican candidates or by the Obama campaign. It would draw national attention to the nomination process, too. It has been a long time since a party convention has had to have multiple ballots to decide who would be the party's nominee for president.

The Democratic Party already has its nominee, President Obama (of course). So, there is no issue there. He will run a strong race, and I think the odds are in his favor of being reelected unless the unemployment rate remains high. Even then, he can still win because he is a strong and intelligent campaigner.

Should one of the present Republican candidates win enough delegates to get the nomination on the first ballot, the time will be ripe for an independent candidate to run against both parties. This person would have to be wealthy, intelligent, able to articulate his ideas well, and not be quirky. In other words, this person would have to be credible. I have no idea who this person might be, though. Indeed, such a person may not exist.

Given all this, I am impressed that Ron Paul has remained consistent on his message. I especially admire his willingness in a previous debate to buck the popular conservative position on "enhanced interrogation techniques" by stating that waterboarding is torture. I read a Tweet by Senator McCain where he stated that he agrees with Ron Paul's position, and so do I. Torture demeans our nation morally, and is of no practical benefit.

Invoking Reagan's Name.

Republican candidates seem to invoke President Reagan's name a lot, except when it comes to torture, immigration, or nuclear weapons. Then, they quietly ignore President Reagan's public policies.

Regarding torture, for example, the Ron Paul campaign has an interesting website, quoting President Reagan. I wonder how the other Republican presidential candidates would respond to the former president's statement?

On the other hand, Democrats do the same with President Kennedy's name. By the time many Democratic candidates are done quoting the former president, one would conclude he was a pacifist. Actually, President Kennedy was a cold warrior, who actively strove to defeat communism. In fact, he criticized the Eisenhower administration for not being aggressive enough in its foreign policy. As a result, the US increased its military presence in Vietnam. The rest is history. Again, Democratic candidates quietly ignore President Kennedy's public policies.

This leads me to conclude that a rule of political campaigning is that politicians can't allow facts get in the way of their political invocations.

For Pre-Law Students at SHSU

"The Political Science Junior Fellows are bringing Kaplan Testing to campus to offer a Mock LSAT. The test will be offered on Saturday, September 17, 2011. The test is an actual LSAT test, and the scoring will be done by professionals and provided to the student 3-5 days following the test. Spots are limited and are being filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. To register, contact Mike Yawn at 936.294.1456 or mike.yawn@shsu.edu. The test is free and lasts from 9:30-1:30. "

Dick Cheney's New Memoir ... Read At Your Own Risk -- VIDEO - Hotline On Call

This is funny: Dick Cheney's New Memoir ... Read At Your Own Risk -- VIDEO - Hotline On Call

Asteroid to hit Earth?

If you think the idea of an asteroid hitting the Earth, as seen in the movie "Armageddon," is fiction, read this article. One difference is that it will be China and Europe saving the Earth. Another difference is there will be no oil drillers going into space to drill on the asteroid (I still liked the movie, though).

NASA has a program dedicated to Near Earth Objects, too.

Ayn Rand, Christianity, and Conservatives.

The philosopher of so many contemporary conservatives and libertarians in the Republican Party "scorns" Jesus and Christianity. Her name is Ayn Rand. I don't blame most tea party members for not understanding what Ayn Rand really believed. However, I do think Christians who think of themselves as conservatives need to know what she said in her own words about Jesus and Christianity.

The complete "Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959" can be seen on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukJiBZ8_4k . In this interview, she said Jesus' type of love is evil. Furthermore, she said a weak person is not worthy of love. In contrast, the Apostle Paul said, "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6).

Ayn Rand's philosophy has greatly influenced Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and is destroying the Republican Party.

Government in the US & UK: An Excellent Comparison

The Huffington Post has an excellent article by Professor Colin R. Talbot comparing goverment in the UK with that in the US. It is entitled, "Schools for Government." I highly recommend reading it.

Libertarian Vacation Spot

This is hilarious!

This is life aboard the International Space Station

This is life aboard the International Space Station: Living in Space

Is Gov Mitt Romney a viable threat?

I found this article in The New York Times interesting: "Group Unleashes Early Ad Against Romney."

Two thoughts come to mind:

1. This is the approach the Obama re-election campaign will take should Gov Romney get the Republican nomination (i.e. focusing on Romney's seeming flip-flops on certain domestic policy issues over the years); and,

2. Some supporters of Pres Obama must be worried about a "Romney for President" campaign to be running such an ad so early before the primary's have begun.

I am not endorsing either Gov Romney or President Obama. However, I expect President Obama will be re-elected because the Republican Party is not likely to nominate a viable candidate. That is, I am not confident Republican voters understand that 2012 is not 1980: there does not appear to be a Ronald Reagan among the Republican candidates, and President Obama is no President Jimmy Carter.

In this light, I think President Obama's supporters would love to see Newt Gingrich or Michele Bachmann get the nomination, or better yet, Sarah Palin.

This is why I find this NYT article intriguing. Are certain Obama supporters showing their hand too early? Do they see Mitt Romney as a viable threat?

I think a former or current Republican governor would make a better nominee for president, former Governor Palin not withstanding, than would a House member or Senator, or someone who has not previously been elected to office.

Indeed, whoever the Republican party nominates, President Obama will have the advantage because he is an intelligent, dignified man who knows how to present himself to the American people. Furthermore, he has a good grasp of the political environment and is willing to do what is necessary to get re-elected.

However, a Romney campaign could be a threat to President Obama's re-election chances should the economy continue to stagnate, especially if the unemployment rate does not fall. In such a case, the Obama campaign will need Republicans to nominate a "wingnut" to ensure victory. This may be the reason for this anti-Romney ad to appear so early: to weaken a viable candidate.

Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report

For anyone who still believes in conspiracy theories about 9-11: Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report .

These myths rank up there with those who deny that the Holocaust happened: very cruel, indeed.

It is sad that we still hear people now and then who believe in such myths.