I was listening to CNN on the way home from work last night and noted that the religious freedom/Indiana issue is still blowing up, with the host hammering-hammering-hammering away at the one guest trying to speak in favor of religious freedom laws.
I had this fleeting thought of ‘what’s the use,’ feeling suddenly convinced that not only was the battle lost but the whole war (politically in the US) as well, that we’d no doubt have to live under a string of Ds for the unforeseeable future. Really, why even bother vote anymore? I thought to myself.
Donna J
It sounds like you live and work in a Democratic area, LA. Why do you think so many people have left California? We didn’t quite make it out of California but at least we made it to an area that is evenly matched. It is invigorating that we live in an area where I don’t worry about my car getting keyed if i have a Republican bumper sticker on it.
Heck, you could even shoot a bear if it was messing with you or your livestock! It is even against the law to move a raccoon from your property; you can and are required to kill it instead. I even know a homeowner who has permission from Fish and Game to chase elk off her property!
You know, we spent a couple days in beautiful Salzburg–framed by incredible beauty, those mountains–but the favorite story of all the tour guides was about the archbishop responsible for all the beautiful Baroque buildings. A formidable guy, say 400 years ago, he took the money he got from the salt mines and used it to build beautiful buildings after a fire took out all the wooden structures.
The archbishop didn’t want to go into the church, he wanted to be a soldier, but family pressure drove him to the priesthood. While he was busy reorganizing and managing all the wealth, he managed to have build a beautiful palace, Mirabell Palace whose gardens you’ll all recognize from the song Do-Re-Mi in The Sound of Music.
Quite a guy. He had the palace built for his mistress by whom he had 15 children.
All the guides loved to flourish that story and laugh. To me, though, it brought up questions. How do you keep hidden 15 children? How do you say Mass with that sin on your shoulders? How you can you say you love God when you live in blatant sin to his commandments.
I didn’t ask those rude questions, but every time I heard the story, something in me felt sick.
My real question is, how long can you mock God before he has to act? See Jeremiah.
We can’t afford to lose Donna. There comes a point when the line is crossed and God brings judgment to a nation just as he does to people.
But we don’t have to lose. I posted something a couple of days ago about the Chick-fil-a phenomenon. And Cracker Barrel.
Just last night and today I heard two relevant comments on this situation.
Last night, Bill O’Rilley lamented the situation where he could get many to come on his program in support of the homosexual, and other cultural issues. But he has only a Baptist pastor from Dallas would come on his program to defend the scriptural viewpoint. He says not a single responsible Catholic (O’Rilley is Catholic).would come on the defend the position.
Rush just described the way George Stephanopoulos blind sided Romney about birth control and invented the “War on Women.”.
But the important thing is something Rush described earlier. If a bakery in town refuses to bake a cake for a same sex wedding, they the bakery is deluged with thousands of angry people who say they will no longer patronize them.
Rush says these e-mails and tweets originate with ten people who can generate multitudes of e-mails. He knows them and where they live, Some in Southern Cal, some in Northwest. One a college professor. He knows because local sponsors to his program get this same harassment. There aren’t thousands, not even dozens. Ten!
As O’Rilley says, “They are organized. We aren’t.”
And I just learned about “the rainbow sticker”. If I see one, I avoid the place. Not because of their lifestyle. I don’t care. But because they are selectively advertising it.
It works both ways.
Meanwhile, I know from Romans 2:3&4 that these people are adding to their Wrath Account.
My problem is that I get impatient for the account settlement.
But God knows what he’s doing and He hasn’t told me.
Russell D. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, will be on CNN tonight at 7pm ET/6pm CT, talking religious freedom on Erin Burnett’s OutFront program.
I told you Menendez was dirty. As you’ll recall, I posted stories on Bob’s dealings with his doctor friend a few months back. He’s officially been indicted.
“Sen. Bob Menendez was indicted on corruption charges Wednesday, accused of using his office to improperly benefit a Florida eye doctor and political donor.
The indictment charged the New Jersey Democrat with 14 counts, including bribery and conspiracy, over his ties to Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy doctor and the politician’s longtime friend.
Melgen also was charged in the case.
The indictment from a grand jury in New Jersey was the latest development in a federal investigation that came into public view when federal authorities raided Melgen’s medical offices two years ago. The investigation focused on whether the senator had improperly advocated on Melgen’s behalf, including by intervening in a Medicare billing dispute.”
——————
What I’d like to know is what of the charges involving the sex trafficking and underage prostitutes the doctor was alleged to have provided during “parties” attended by the Senator?
The SS scandals are easily explained. They’re just doing what the people they are protecting are doing. Bill Clinton and his pedophile billionaire friend, and even foreign royalty have been mentioned in incidents with similar escapades, yet no one is charged but some low-level employees in the SS.
I think what’s most frustrating is the few/several (?) “liberal” Christian friends I have on FB who are all over this issue (gay marriage vs. whatever).
One of the most prolific posters on the issue (Methodist) posted this today linking to a story about a pizzeria in Indiana (which I didn’t read):
_____________________________________________________
Her intro:
“This pizza joint doesn’t have a clue, because Jesus would go to the wedding (He’d bring the wine). Jesus NEVER said anything about gays… NOTHING! ZIP! ZERO! NADA! Yes, I know Paul did, but he’s NOT Jesus and Paul also said women should keep quiet in the church and how many women are leaders and ministers in their churches? Hmmm?”
I could take all that apart, point by point, of course, but I already know I’d wind up in a very uncomfortable run-in with one of her liberal friends (I know this because it happened about a year ago when I learned this lesson! It got ugly — on her end only, I just felt bullied). Gotta watch those Methodists.
So it’s a “scroll-by” post for me, another opinion and link that I strongly (!) disagree with on so many levels, but I won’t go there on the FB platform.
“Four years ago today, President Barack Obama was gearing up to announce his reelection campaign, Mitt Romney was leading Newt Gingrich in the polls, and roughly one out of every three American adults owned a smartphone.
“You read that right: In the spring of 2011, just 35 percent of American adults owned a smartphone, according to Pew Research. The Internet and social media may have been changing politics in myriad ways, but news consumption was mostly a sedentary experience.
“Today, as Hillary Clinton prepares for the formal launch of her campaign, and as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are neck and neck in the polls, roughly two out of every three American adults, or 64 percent, own a smartphone, according to a new report from Pew.
Just because we have smart phones doesn’t mean we know how to use them!
Let’s see how that spell checks!
Perfectly.
Okay, but that doesn’t mean we use them for news . . . Though I note somehow the president and his wife always turn up in my Twitter feed without being invited . . . .
Here’s a more articulate/serious FB post by a former journalist colleague, I still could (theologically) easily challenge much of this (and I think her presumptions, theologically speaking, are really off-base); but it also, I think, is instructive:
_________________________________
Many of my friends have seen my ongoing discussion about being politically liberal/progressive and also a practicing Christian. Some of my more conservative friends have called into question how I could support marriage equality, a woman’s right to choose, and feminism (among other things) and still call myself Christian. I have responded in the past asking how they can support discrimination against gays, government control of a woman’s choice, wealth inequity (including reducing taxes on the rich), and male chauvinism (and the traditional definition of chauvinism which is often identified as exceptionalism) while still claiming to be following Jesus Christ.
My friend XXXXXX XXXX, in commenting on the Indiana gay discrimination law, shared the following words, which resonated with me quite profoundly. (The article to which she is referring can be found here: http://www.patheos.com/…/jesus-burdens-our-religious-freedo…) She gave her permission for me to share them:
She said: For many years I naively believed conservative Christians had no idea how many moderate or liberal Christians they were alienating from religion.
Now I get it that they do and are happy to run us out. The goal since Reagan has been to co-opt the name and redefine it into something that is virtually unrecognizable to the Christian faith or teachings of Christ I was raised on.
This article, for me, speaks to the heart of this matter.
I will add the same yahoo politicians crafting laws to discriminate against the LGBT community are the same yahoos who want to cut funding to care for the poor, the sick, the weak, the young, the elderly, etc. they are the same who are beating the war drums to fight ISIS or Iran or Syria or the Muslim brotherhood or North Korea – they just want to fight somebody and feed the war machine.
They want laws that suppress minority voting. They want laws that expand gun proliferation, not contain it in a sane way to lower violence. They want to turn away innocent civilians, including children, at. Our borders fleeing for their lives from drug cartels. They don’t care if bridges and roads collapse under us. They only care about educating their own kids, but not someone else’s. They want taxes cut to put more money in their own pockets at the expense of the greater good – like investing in our infrastructure.
So much for giving unto Caesar. So much for selflessness.
And all these yahoos do so in the name of Christian values. If they are right, then I’m no Christian and don’t want to be. This has nothing in common with the Jesus I know. The only verse that comes to mind is “Jesus wept”.
__________________________________________________
As I said, I find a lot to disagree with in this (based on sound doctrine & theology); but I also found it a more thoughtful approach than what I typically see, at least on FB.
The problem I have with what my FB friend posted (and I don’t know anything really about her faith) is that it appears to me that she’s trying to justify & back up her political views (taxes for infrastructure?) by claiming they are inherently Christian. That seems to put the cart before the horse and my sense is that her politics, not Scripture, takes the lead in deciding how she stands on issues. The political issue is decided on first, then the Bible is used to somehow support that — rather than the other way around.
And we’re all guilty at times of doing that.
It’s always important for us as Christians to first of all & most importantly always to know the Scriptures — and then to be able (and willing) to discern/recognize what ideas and viewpoints and opinions that we hold merely out of political or cultural preference.
That’s hard for all of us, left or right (and sometimes there aren’t clear correlations between the faith and “political” stances, sometimes opposing views can both be supported by extensions of biblical thinking).
How we feel about a particular bond measure, for example, maybe shouldn’t be claimed as a specifically “Christian” stance.
I think believers can also honestly disagree on foreign policy matters — whether or not to go to war, for example, although the church’s historic “just war” theory has done much to give us a foundation on which to judge some of these issues. Personal participation in combat, the death penalty — two other areas where there have been valid (I think) disagreements among Christians who view Scripture as their primary authority.
Believers need to see everything through the lens of Scripture, as much as possible, but we all fail, to some degree, in doing this completely; it’s hard to stand aside from our personal and political biases.
Some areas seem clear to me, including a stand against abortion & euthanasia — a consistent position FOR life as something that has been given by God and is not in our authority to take.
I’d also include God’s pattern for marriage and family within that more obvious realm, although the question of whether a secular society can recognize gay marriage for nonbelievers is perhaps (for some) seen as a separate issue where there can be “wiggle” room allowed as an accommodation (I would disagree, but there’s an argument that has been made along those lines by some Christians).
Making an argument that gay marriage is permissible within the church itself and among believers steps beyond what the Bible clearly teaches, however.
Many positions can be discerned through a careful study of doctrine — and many just by rightly perceiving and applying the clear message of the Bible. Others are less clear.
I was compelled to change some of my political/social/cultural opinions when I became a believer. Eventually, my voting patterns changed as a result of that as well. But some of that took time. And I suspect that I’m still too often prone to letting my own personal & political biases color how I view some issues.
Wandering Views 
I was listening to CNN on the way home from work last night and noted that the religious freedom/Indiana issue is still blowing up, with the host hammering-hammering-hammering away at the one guest trying to speak in favor of religious freedom laws.
I had this fleeting thought of ‘what’s the use,’ feeling suddenly convinced that not only was the battle lost but the whole war (politically in the US) as well, that we’d no doubt have to live under a string of Ds for the unforeseeable future. Really, why even bother vote anymore? I thought to myself.
Talk about a moment of political depression!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Donna J
It sounds like you live and work in a Democratic area, LA. Why do you think so many people have left California? We didn’t quite make it out of California but at least we made it to an area that is evenly matched. It is invigorating that we live in an area where I don’t worry about my car getting keyed if i have a Republican bumper sticker on it.
i have even gone to Tea Party meetings!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Heck, you could even shoot a bear if it was messing with you or your livestock! It is even against the law to move a raccoon from your property; you can and are required to kill it instead. I even know a homeowner who has permission from Fish and Game to chase elk off her property!
LikeLike
You know, we spent a couple days in beautiful Salzburg–framed by incredible beauty, those mountains–but the favorite story of all the tour guides was about the archbishop responsible for all the beautiful Baroque buildings. A formidable guy, say 400 years ago, he took the money he got from the salt mines and used it to build beautiful buildings after a fire took out all the wooden structures.
The archbishop didn’t want to go into the church, he wanted to be a soldier, but family pressure drove him to the priesthood. While he was busy reorganizing and managing all the wealth, he managed to have build a beautiful palace, Mirabell Palace whose gardens you’ll all recognize from the song Do-Re-Mi in The Sound of Music.
Quite a guy. He had the palace built for his mistress by whom he had 15 children.
All the guides loved to flourish that story and laugh. To me, though, it brought up questions. How do you keep hidden 15 children? How do you say Mass with that sin on your shoulders? How you can you say you love God when you live in blatant sin to his commandments.
I didn’t ask those rude questions, but every time I heard the story, something in me felt sick.
My real question is, how long can you mock God before he has to act? See Jeremiah.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Sounds like what I read in the Bible this morning as I began the book of Judges. Not my favorite book, but very descriptive of where we are.
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Bob, L.A. is completely lost — for now. 😦 We in the minority have learned well to keep mum.
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We can’t afford to lose Donna. There comes a point when the line is crossed and God brings judgment to a nation just as he does to people.
But we don’t have to lose. I posted something a couple of days ago about the Chick-fil-a phenomenon. And Cracker Barrel.
Just last night and today I heard two relevant comments on this situation.
Last night, Bill O’Rilley lamented the situation where he could get many to come on his program in support of the homosexual, and other cultural issues. But he has only a Baptist pastor from Dallas would come on his program to defend the scriptural viewpoint. He says not a single responsible Catholic (O’Rilley is Catholic).would come on the defend the position.
Rush just described the way George Stephanopoulos blind sided Romney about birth control and invented the “War on Women.”.
But the important thing is something Rush described earlier. If a bakery in town refuses to bake a cake for a same sex wedding, they the bakery is deluged with thousands of angry people who say they will no longer patronize them.
Rush says these e-mails and tweets originate with ten people who can generate multitudes of e-mails. He knows them and where they live, Some in Southern Cal, some in Northwest. One a college professor. He knows because local sponsors to his program get this same harassment. There aren’t thousands, not even dozens. Ten!
As O’Rilley says, “They are organized. We aren’t.”
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And I just learned about “the rainbow sticker”. If I see one, I avoid the place. Not because of their lifestyle. I don’t care. But because they are selectively advertising it.
It works both ways.
LikeLike
Meanwhile, I know from Romans 2:3&4 that these people are adding to their Wrath Account.
My problem is that I get impatient for the account settlement.
But God knows what he’s doing and He hasn’t told me.
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Russell D. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, will be on CNN tonight at 7pm ET/6pm CT, talking religious freedom on Erin Burnett’s OutFront program.
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Tweet thread (molly from the Federalist): The political war over gay culture is over, and the gays won / Now roaming country, shooting survivors
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I told you Menendez was dirty. As you’ll recall, I posted stories on Bob’s dealings with his doctor friend a few months back. He’s officially been indicted.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-jersey-sen-bob-menendez-indicted-on-corruption-charges/ar-AAajTeN
“Sen. Bob Menendez was indicted on corruption charges Wednesday, accused of using his office to improperly benefit a Florida eye doctor and political donor.
The indictment charged the New Jersey Democrat with 14 counts, including bribery and conspiracy, over his ties to Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy doctor and the politician’s longtime friend.
Melgen also was charged in the case.
The indictment from a grand jury in New Jersey was the latest development in a federal investigation that came into public view when federal authorities raided Melgen’s medical offices two years ago. The investigation focused on whether the senator had improperly advocated on Melgen’s behalf, including by intervening in a Medicare billing dispute.”
——————
What I’d like to know is what of the charges involving the sex trafficking and underage prostitutes the doctor was alleged to have provided during “parties” attended by the Senator?
The SS scandals are easily explained. They’re just doing what the people they are protecting are doing. Bill Clinton and his pedophile billionaire friend, and even foreign royalty have been mentioned in incidents with similar escapades, yet no one is charged but some low-level employees in the SS.
The fish stinks from the head down.
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“We can’t afford to lose Donna.” What a difference a comma makes. 🙂
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😎
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I think what’s most frustrating is the few/several (?) “liberal” Christian friends I have on FB who are all over this issue (gay marriage vs. whatever).
One of the most prolific posters on the issue (Methodist) posted this today linking to a story about a pizzeria in Indiana (which I didn’t read):
_____________________________________________________
Her intro:
“This pizza joint doesn’t have a clue, because Jesus would go to the wedding (He’d bring the wine). Jesus NEVER said anything about gays… NOTHING! ZIP! ZERO! NADA! Yes, I know Paul did, but he’s NOT Jesus and Paul also said women should keep quiet in the church and how many women are leaders and ministers in their churches? Hmmm?”
_________________________________________________________
Sigh (again).
I could take all that apart, point by point, of course, but I already know I’d wind up in a very uncomfortable run-in with one of her liberal friends (I know this because it happened about a year ago when I learned this lesson! It got ugly — on her end only, I just felt bullied). Gotta watch those Methodists.
So it’s a “scroll-by” post for me, another opinion and link that I strongly (!) disagree with on so many levels, but I won’t go there on the FB platform.
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How smartphones will impact the 2016 election
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/04/the-mobile-election-how-smartphones-will-change-the-204855.html
___________________________________________________
“Four years ago today, President Barack Obama was gearing up to announce his reelection campaign, Mitt Romney was leading Newt Gingrich in the polls, and roughly one out of every three American adults owned a smartphone.
“You read that right: In the spring of 2011, just 35 percent of American adults owned a smartphone, according to Pew Research. The Internet and social media may have been changing politics in myriad ways, but news consumption was mostly a sedentary experience.
“Today, as Hillary Clinton prepares for the formal launch of her campaign, and as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are neck and neck in the polls, roughly two out of every three American adults, or 64 percent, own a smartphone, according to a new report from Pew.
___________________________________
Including Chas 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just because we have smart phones doesn’t mean we know how to use them!
Let’s see how that spell checks!
Perfectly.
Okay, but that doesn’t mean we use them for news . . . Though I note somehow the president and his wife always turn up in my Twitter feed without being invited . . . .
LikeLiked by 1 person
Losing this battle will pretty much make the faith of millions of Americans illegal.
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Michelle, I kind of think that people like that don’t really believe in the faith they profess.
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Bells, it was me, but yeah, I wonder also …
Here’s a more articulate/serious FB post by a former journalist colleague, I still could (theologically) easily challenge much of this (and I think her presumptions, theologically speaking, are really off-base); but it also, I think, is instructive:
_________________________________
Many of my friends have seen my ongoing discussion about being politically liberal/progressive and also a practicing Christian. Some of my more conservative friends have called into question how I could support marriage equality, a woman’s right to choose, and feminism (among other things) and still call myself Christian. I have responded in the past asking how they can support discrimination against gays, government control of a woman’s choice, wealth inequity (including reducing taxes on the rich), and male chauvinism (and the traditional definition of chauvinism which is often identified as exceptionalism) while still claiming to be following Jesus Christ.
My friend XXXXXX XXXX, in commenting on the Indiana gay discrimination law, shared the following words, which resonated with me quite profoundly. (The article to which she is referring can be found here: http://www.patheos.com/…/jesus-burdens-our-religious-freedo…) She gave her permission for me to share them:
She said: For many years I naively believed conservative Christians had no idea how many moderate or liberal Christians they were alienating from religion.
Now I get it that they do and are happy to run us out. The goal since Reagan has been to co-opt the name and redefine it into something that is virtually unrecognizable to the Christian faith or teachings of Christ I was raised on.
This article, for me, speaks to the heart of this matter.
I will add the same yahoo politicians crafting laws to discriminate against the LGBT community are the same yahoos who want to cut funding to care for the poor, the sick, the weak, the young, the elderly, etc. they are the same who are beating the war drums to fight ISIS or Iran or Syria or the Muslim brotherhood or North Korea – they just want to fight somebody and feed the war machine.
They want laws that suppress minority voting. They want laws that expand gun proliferation, not contain it in a sane way to lower violence. They want to turn away innocent civilians, including children, at. Our borders fleeing for their lives from drug cartels. They don’t care if bridges and roads collapse under us. They only care about educating their own kids, but not someone else’s. They want taxes cut to put more money in their own pockets at the expense of the greater good – like investing in our infrastructure.
So much for giving unto Caesar. So much for selflessness.
And all these yahoos do so in the name of Christian values. If they are right, then I’m no Christian and don’t want to be. This has nothing in common with the Jesus I know. The only verse that comes to mind is “Jesus wept”.
__________________________________________________
As I said, I find a lot to disagree with in this (based on sound doctrine & theology); but I also found it a more thoughtful approach than what I typically see, at least on FB.
LikeLiked by 1 person
To be continued…
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The problem I have with what my FB friend posted (and I don’t know anything really about her faith) is that it appears to me that she’s trying to justify & back up her political views (taxes for infrastructure?) by claiming they are inherently Christian. That seems to put the cart before the horse and my sense is that her politics, not Scripture, takes the lead in deciding how she stands on issues. The political issue is decided on first, then the Bible is used to somehow support that — rather than the other way around.
And we’re all guilty at times of doing that.
It’s always important for us as Christians to first of all & most importantly always to know the Scriptures — and then to be able (and willing) to discern/recognize what ideas and viewpoints and opinions that we hold merely out of political or cultural preference.
That’s hard for all of us, left or right (and sometimes there aren’t clear correlations between the faith and “political” stances, sometimes opposing views can both be supported by extensions of biblical thinking).
How we feel about a particular bond measure, for example, maybe shouldn’t be claimed as a specifically “Christian” stance.
I think believers can also honestly disagree on foreign policy matters — whether or not to go to war, for example, although the church’s historic “just war” theory has done much to give us a foundation on which to judge some of these issues. Personal participation in combat, the death penalty — two other areas where there have been valid (I think) disagreements among Christians who view Scripture as their primary authority.
Believers need to see everything through the lens of Scripture, as much as possible, but we all fail, to some degree, in doing this completely; it’s hard to stand aside from our personal and political biases.
Some areas seem clear to me, including a stand against abortion & euthanasia — a consistent position FOR life as something that has been given by God and is not in our authority to take.
I’d also include God’s pattern for marriage and family within that more obvious realm, although the question of whether a secular society can recognize gay marriage for nonbelievers is perhaps (for some) seen as a separate issue where there can be “wiggle” room allowed as an accommodation (I would disagree, but there’s an argument that has been made along those lines by some Christians).
Making an argument that gay marriage is permissible within the church itself and among believers steps beyond what the Bible clearly teaches, however.
Many positions can be discerned through a careful study of doctrine — and many just by rightly perceiving and applying the clear message of the Bible. Others are less clear.
I was compelled to change some of my political/social/cultural opinions when I became a believer. Eventually, my voting patterns changed as a result of that as well. But some of that took time. And I suspect that I’m still too often prone to letting my own personal & political biases color how I view some issues.
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