Mayflower Compact

On this day in 1620, a brave band wrote the Mayflower Compact, which in many ways is the precursor to the US Constitution. It is worth remembering the generational impact of living boldly and fearlessly for God's purposes.

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IN THE name of God, Amen.

We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the 11 of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domine 1620.

Three Questions to Ask Yourself - and Answer - Every Day

My roommate threw the little green New Testament across the room. It hit me in the head. He spluttered, "If you're going to complain about it, you have to read it! And answer two questions: Who is Jesus? And what are you going to do about that?"

I took Matt at his word, reading the New Testament in three days. I was amazed, this Jesus was real! He was bold and gentle. He was God incarnate. I had thought that the disciples had made up all these stories, but reading them seriously as an adult, I realized this could not be true. (For starters, they would have made themselves look a lot smarter!) I answered Matt's questions, and committed my life to Jesus as my true Savior and Lord.

Those two questions got me started 23 years ago. I still try to ask and answer these two each day:

Who is Jesus?
What will I do about that, today?

And I now recommend a third questions to you:
"Where is your faith?"

This is what Jesus asked His disciples in the boat, after He calmed the storm (see Luke 8:25). After we have started on our walk with Jesus, we still need faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please God..." (Hebrews 11:6) Our faith is neither blind nor vague, but solidly rooted in the Person and promise of Jesus our Lord.

Each day, renew your mind (see Romans 12:1-2) by reminding yourself about Jesus as Savior, Creator, Master, Teacher, Friend, and Lord.

Each day, seek the Lord's guidance about how to love Him and serve Him by loving others and using the abilities He gave you.

Each day, fight against doubt, fear, and pride by putting your faith in Jesus.

Each day, ask and answer these questions:

Who is Jesus?
What will I do about that today?
Where is my faith?

May our gracious Lord glorify His Name in and through you, each day.

Another Peaceful Election

Another peaceful election. And it will be another peaceful transfer of power to President Barack Obama in January. What a remarkable electoral history we share in the US!

May God bless America!

Words, Love, and Worship

If you're teaching from James 3, check out this powerful video.

If you're not teaching from James 3, check out this powerful video.

Six minutes, well worth your time.

Glenn

Ten Cannots

I thought it was interesting that this came from a pastor...and check the date!

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The Ten Cannots
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
-- Rev. William John Henry Boetcker, 1873

Source

Through the Lens of Decision-Making

My friend Matt Perman has started a blog "What's Best Next" that I'm delighted to recommend to you. His premise is "Making good decisions in life, work, business, and society" -- and he already has some dynamite material on decision-making, individual and group productivity, and thinking correctly about non-profit fund raising and employees.

Recommended. Add this one to your regular list.

Matt is the leader of the group that manages the desiringgod.org site, a great family guy, and a smart cookie. I wish I could hire him!

About Iran

Michael Ledeen shares some useful history about Iran. I've been hearing the word "Islamofascism" for a while now, but didn't realize the full extent of similarities to German and Italian fascist history in the 20th century.

Pray for our Christian brothers and sisters there!

Fun Quote on TV

"Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your house."

-- David Frost

Selfless Defense

If you're interested in apologetics, check out this site:

Selfless Defense

You'll find a large set of short videos you can use -- with accompanying discussion questions, all free. There are also excellent articles (studded with Scripture, written in logic and grace) on multiple topics. Great resources!

These Things Will Still Be True

A friend forwarded this to me in an email, source unattributed. Good reminder!


Top 10 Predictions No Matter Who Wins the Election

1. The Bible will still have all the answers.
2. Prayer will still work.
3. The Holy Spirit will still move.
4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.
5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.
6. There will still be singing of praise to God.
7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.
8. There will still be room at the Cross.
9. Jesus will still love you.
10. Jesus will still save the lost when they come to Him AND….

God approves of this message! ISN'T IT GREAT TO KNOW WHO IS REALLY IN CHARGE?

On Dinosaur Footprints

My friend Kevin Nelstead ("the GeoChristian") provides an excellent analysis of the challenges interpreting dinosaur footprint fossils. He gently works through the problems with the "they're all from the flood" explanation. Great pictures.

What I greatly appreciate about Kevin is that he never loses hold of the importance of the Gospel, and reaching more people with the Message entrusted to us, while he works through geology. He's consistently been a terrific example for all of us.

Before You Vote -- Recommended Reading

Folks, before you vote, check out some recommended reading:

This column by Orson Scott Card, "What Really Matters."

John Steele Gordon's analysis of the patterns involved in the banking crisis in 1836, the S&L crisis in the 1980s, and now the Fannie/Freddie debacle.

Judge Napolitano's reminders that the large majority of presidents have ignored the US Constitution (yes, the one they swear to protect).

Teaching Your Family to be Discerning

No matter where your family or the world is with economic, political, and cultural ups and downs, Dads, we have a responsibility to train our families to be discerning.

Quick tour of the Bible's guidance on discernment:

1. Discernment is a gift from God. See Solomon's story (1 Kings 3:9-11), for example, and Daniel (Daniel 2:21).

2. Discernment also requires our cooperation and study. (multiple references in Proverbs)

3. We need to study God's Word as the standard for righteousness. We need revealed truth, because we cannot rely exclusively upon what our hearts may tell us. Consider Hebrews 5:12-14 (emphasis mine):

"In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."

Engineers might say discernment is about selecting meaningful, valuable signal from a noisy environment.

Wise fathers are constantly seeking to discern between good and evil, and the best direction to take, thinking methodically about situations (because they are complicated, with multiple stakeholders, perspectives, and factors moving over time, all in a sin-stained world). And one of the avenues to our own growth is that we're coaching our own families in this same practice.

Try talking through situations aloud with your children. Pitch issues to be age appropriate, and build on what you know of your children's learning history. Teenagers should be engaged as intelligent youth -- the label "teen" does not show up in Scripture. You can work through current events, stuff that goes on at school, issues that affect your extended family, almost anything. Go to relevant Bible passages as a source of truth.

Wherever your children are now on the discernment scale, they need your help to get to the next level. Helping them helps you, too.

ESV Study Bible online

Wonderful resource: the ESV Study Bible contents are online, and searchable, AND...you can store your own notes there. Excellent articles, maps, and diagrams. Recommended.

More on FOCA

Senator Obama has promised to deliver the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) on day 1 of his presidency. Actually, since it is a bill originating in Congress, it's unlikely that he'd have the opportunity to sign it on day 1, so we understand that he's making a figure of speech.

Learn more about the sweeping consequences of FOCA here.

What People Believe

“People don’t believe what you tell them.
They rarely believe what you show them.
They often believe what their friends tell them.
They always believe what they tell themselves.

What leaders do: give people stories they can tell themselves. Stories about the future and about change.”

Seth Godin, in Tribes

Making Progress

I've been raking a lot of leaves up in our yard. The trees are mocking me, dropping leaves on me while I rake, and when my back is turned. Mr. Wind is helping the neighbor's trees to mock me, too, blowing more leaves into our yard :-)

Actually, raking leaves is satisfying work. The weather has been nice, it's good exercise, and you can see your progress. It's difficult to see progress in a lot of the work I do, so the clear before/after progress of raking leaves is a nice change of pace.

It raises the question: "How do I know I'm making progress in my walk with the Lord?"

First off, let's be clear: we are supposed to make progress. (See, for example, Philippians 3:12)

But how do we (or others) see progress over time? What's the evidence that progress has occurred? Some possibilities:

Greater love and compassion for others, especially the un-lovely (worldly view) and lost
Increased commitment to serving others, giving of our time, talents, and money
More patience
Persevering love in the midst of challenges
Increased actions based on faith, rather than sight
More time in prayerful conversation with the Lord
Letting go of distractions and "agendas" more often
Less anxiousness
Less fear
Increased knowledge about the Bible

Consider 2 Peter 1:3-11, emphasis mine:

" 3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

I believe in eternal security. I also believe what v.5 and v.10 tells us -- we need to put forth every effort and be eager to do these things (obedience) to make our calling and election sure.

I encourage you to reflect on your progress. What do you need to do today?

Tribes

Book recommendation: Tribes, by Seth Godin.

The subtitle is "We Need You To Lead Us"

Seth brilliantly analyzes the human behavior for groups of people passionate about a topic, issue, hobby, or business. And he especially focuses on what it takes to effectively lead a tribe -- which is what you are called to be.

It's short, readable, lots of pithy sentences. Perfect even for guys who aren't big on reading.

You'll be marking this book up with your notes. Sometimes you'll nod in agreement. Other times you'll be saying "Ahhh, that's what I need to do."

I will warn you that this is not a recipe book, with 1-2-3 formulas. (Relationships don't work that way, right?) But it will be one of the best business books you could read this year.

Are There Two Irreconcilable Americas?

Dennis Prager posits there there are two irreconcilable Americas, differing completely on their views of what America should be. (He labels them "left" and "right," which is perhaps too simplistic, but makes for simpler writing. I'll leave it to you to decide if it promotes better understanding in a reader.)

Do you agree? (Comments welcomed.)

It's tough to distill it down into simple discussion points, because of systemic factors like:

• the large range of perspectives of the electorate population
• the momentum of consequences of past decisions and previous behavior that carry forward for years
• poor understanding of cause and effect in complex systems like large electorates and even larger economies linked across nations

compounded by sin (greed, lies, injustice, pride).

I could begin to write down the relationships in a series of equations and produce a qualitative system flow diagram, but I can't measure the strength of variables and relationships between factors in the system. That's because I'm part of the system rather than outside of it.

Why am I writing about this? Because men like you need to be leaders. Leaders need to appreciate reality, and help others make increasinly wise decisions over time.

Not Pro-Choice, but Pro-Abortion

A number of Christians I know are supporting Senator Obama. When I ask about their views of Sen. Obama's position on abortion, I hear responses like...

"The president doesn't have much influence on that, really."

"He wants to strengthen the economy and provide more help to reduce unwanted pregnancies."

"McCain is not a real pro-life candidate, either, look at his position on stem-cells."

"The abortion issue is a low priority compared to decisions about the taxes and foreign policy."

"It has no bearing on how he'll make decisions about important issues."

"I'm not a single-issue voter. I'm voting for the smart guy."

Quoting my grandfather: "If you have a belly button, you're entitled to your opinion. That's about all your entitled to."

I do believe a political leader's stance on abortion and his public record speaks to character and values, including how he'll make decisions about other issues. We're judged by how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable. And I do believe the US president has influence on abortion.

If you'd care to examine Senator Obama's actual statements and record on this issue, please read through this article by Robert George, which has many links to sources so you can check through the facts. The man is not consistenly pro-choice, he's actually consistently pro-abortion. As Mr. George writes,

"Barack Obama's America is one in which being human just isn't enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama's America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: "that question is above my pay grade." It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator's pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then."

Patient Instruction

I posted the following on my blog for teachers this morning. It's true for other kinds of relationships as well. -- Glenn

I've received several notes recently from teachers struggling to remain patient with students who don't learn quickly, or seem interested in learning.

"1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."(Ephesians 4:1-6)

Did you catch the counsel there for teachers? "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."

When this kind of frustration happens to us, our irritation and anger is surging because of some dimension of our pride. Yes, it may be true that your students are slow to learn. They may be resistant to incorporating the clear lessons from Scripture into their lives. They may seem dull of hearing, or bored, or desiring more entertainment rather than solid food. But the Lord may well have used these circumstances to expose your pride for what it is.

Our response must be the same as God's response to us: patient instruction, faithful perserverance, humility that we, too, need God's great mercy. We continue to love and bear with one another, acknowledging that living in community is hard at times. We wait and pray for the Holy Spirit to do His work in their hearts (and in our hearts!).

Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

Remedial Waiting

A friend is newly unemployed. He is searching for a new position, seeking God's direction. I reminded him about Steve Farrar's experience, which he described as "Remedial Waiting." You show up for Remedial Waiting 101, and you...just....wait. And tomorrow it's the same. God does amazing things in a man's soul during these days.

Honest vs. Candid

There are some expressions in American English which trouble me. For example, you'll hear people say, "To be honest with you..." or "If I'm really honest..."

They do not mean to imply they were lying earlier. Nor is actually possible to be partially honest. But that's what those words actually mean.

In my work I interact frequently with people for whom English is a 2nd or 3rd language. One of these individuals brought this odd use of the word "honest" to my attention. Relaying a previous conversation, she asked me, "Did he lie to me other times, before he said he is speaking honestly?"

So here's what you should say: "Candidly, ...." or "To be frank..."

That's what you really mean. Save the word "honesty" for the important issues of truth and falsehood.

Check the Basis for Rights

Melinda on the Stand to Reason blog points out a concern from the 2nd presidential debate: Senator Obama seems to be saying that health care should be a right for Americans because we can afford it. Here's that part from the transcript, so you can evaluate for yourself:

Brokaw: Quick discussion. Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility? (McCain answered first: responsibility)
...Obama: Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.

Melinda correctly points out the problem with declaring something a right apart from a constitutional basis (emphasis mine):

"The merits of national health care aside, it's the grounding of rights in our country that concerns me. Rights are ground in the Constitution, rights that the government is bound to respect. And those rights are in turn grounded explicitly in the objective source of God, which is why government is bound to respect individual rights. Once we move away from the Constitution as the grounding of rights, the government becomes the granter of those rights, and there is no external obligation then for the government to respect individual rights. And if a right is grounded in our nation's prosperity, does the right go away if the nation is no longer prosperous? Declaring rights apart from the Constitution makes those rights changeable. The government can grant and deny rights. Isn't that the despotism our Constitution was meant to protect citizens from?"

Recovering from "I'm Disgusted"

Our loving God did not leave me in the same state of concern as when I wrote yesterday's post, which I titled "I'm Disgusted." Here's the story:

We had a scheduled fire drill at work. Beautiful sunny October day, blue sky to make your heart melt. As I was taking in a deep breath the verses from Psalm 100 came to mind:

1Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.
2Serve the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful singing.
3Know that the LORD Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
5For the LORD is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations. (NAS)

God gave me a reset on perspective. I didn't hear an audible voice, but through His word was reminded that He is good and faithful -- as He has been in the past He will be in our future. And lifting my eyes off the muck and mire, let me remember that He is the Lord and I did not create myself. My task is to worship!

And I might actually look forward to our next scheduled fire drill, too.

Overcoming Limiting Factors

Here is a useful guide for identifying and then overcoming the limiting factors -- for yourself or others. It's important to distinguish the causes of the limitation, then respond appropriately.

Issue: Ability
What They Say: “I don’t know how.”
Needed Response: Teaching: “Let me teach you.”

Issue: Motivation
What They Say: “I don’t want to.”
Needed Response: Point out why it matters: “This will be better.”

Issue: Lack of Mastery
What They Say: “It’s hard.”
Needed Response: Encouragement, Coaching, Modeling: “Keep going.”

Issue: Barrier
What They Say: ““I can’t because…”
Needed Response: Leadership: “How can I help eliminate the obstacle?”

Additional Comments:
▪ Ability is clear. A person lacks a needed skill. I will teach, help you practice, and give you feedback and coaching.
▪ Motivation is tricky. Self-motivation (there really is no other kind) rests on understanding consequences (carrots and sticks). An effective approach is to point out why it matters (to you, to others, and to the person). Modeling, on the other hand, is often used for addressing difficulty (let me show you an easy/easier way).
▪ Lack of Mastery (or Difficulty) is also tricky. A person can have mastered something, but simply finds it very difficult. An example might be a very effective public speaker who is a flaming introvert and for each speaking engagement panics. This person is likely to come to dread public speaking, even though doing it well. Tactics here are encouragement, coaching, and also helping the person to see the importance or impact of his or her actions. See also Modeling.
▪ Barrier is also clear. Leaders provide resources and remove barriers to enable performance.

Final Word of Advice:“Don’t try to solve a person’s problem until you understand why they like having it.” – Glenn Livingston

I'm Disgusted

The current political campaign is obnoxious (both Republican and Democrat candidates are telling lies, distorting records -- see factcheck.org for the 2nd debate -- and happily). I cannot vote for Senator Obama out of conscience, and I strongly disagree with his worldview about the role of government. Nothing in my gut is enthusiastic about McCain/Palin -- feels like a vote against Obama/Biden.

I strongly suspect that we're just at the beginning of the beginning on our fiscal challenges. Unfunded entitlement obligations are in the trillions. Federal deficit spending has topped 10 trillion -- and that's when someone is counting Social Security dollars as if they're in a lock-box somewhere, which they aren't. If someone really knows how bad it is, they may not be telling us.

The sport of finger-pointing isn't getting us anywhere. Economically innocent people are getting hurt.

And we appear to be stuck in situations where effectively the same groups of people who made decisions over several decades (sorry, JT, but not everything bad started with the Bush administration) to get us into these messes are the ones we have to rely upon to make things better. Politically viable solutions are likely to fall short.

Have you thought how appealing the AntiChrist figure could look as these circumstances go forward?

I'm disgusted. I'm disheartened.

I agree with my friend Scott: "Is this the best America can present for leadership?"

Now, having not yet contributed to making things better, I'm going to invest time praying.

Unity in the Church

Mark Driscoll outlines church unity based around 5 themes:

• Theological
• Relational
• Philosophical
• Missional
• Organizational

Great 5 minute video.

Handling Evil -- 8 and 4

Check out John Piper's excellent counsel about 8 things to do with evil, and 4 things not to do.

I refer you to this in part because almost every conversation I was in yesterday someone expressed anger/frustration/anxiousness about the bank problems and stock market fall. The pattern of history shows that evil follows anger/frustration/anxiousness.

Piper's short list would be the basis for an excellent family devotion.

20 Resolutions from James

Sinclair Ferguson gives us 20 resolutions from James:

James 1:5 To ask God for wisdom to speak and with a single mind
James 1:9-10 To boast only in exaltation in Christ, & humiliation in world
James 1:13 To set a watch over my mouth
James 1:19 To be constantly quick to hear, slow to speak
James 2:1-4 To learn the gospel way of speaking to poor and the rich
James 2:12 To speak always in the consciousness of the final judgment
James 2:16 To never stand on anyone’s face with my words
James 3:14 To never claim as reality something I do not experience
James 4:1 To resist quarrelsome words in order to mortify a quarrelsome heart
James 4:11 To never speak evil of another
James 4:13 To never boast in what I will accomplish
James 4:15 To always speak as one subject to the providences of God
James 5:9 To never grumble, knowing that the Judge is at the door
James 5:12 To never allow anything but total integrity in my speech
James 5:13 To speak to God in prayer whenever I suffer
James 5:14 To sing praises to God whenever I am cheerful
James 5:14 To ask for the prayers of others when I am sick
James 5:15 To confess it freely whenever I have failed
James 5:15 To pray with and for one another when I am together with others
James 5:19 To speak words of restoration when I see another wander

HT: Between Two Worlds

Count On It!

Dallas Willard says there are two things you can always count on from government:

1. Government will lie to you.
2. Government will use force on you.

*Note: I have this second-hand from a reliable source.

During this US Presidential election season, it's all too easy for believers to get their hopes and dreams wrapped up in government solutions. "If we can just get the right people in the top spots, all will be well," we tell ourselves.

Fantasy.

We've had Republican leadership in the executive branch for the majority of the past few decades. It hasn't been sufficient to transform the culture by most measures, has it? (I can't quantify how much those men's influence forestalled a worse state of affairs, since we can do the split-test experiment.)

Whom is elected is important, please don't misunderstand my point. I have said in past that while you cannot legislate morality, you can legislate to promote immorality.

My point is that electing the "right" people is not sufficient. It's not even necessary. God has used righteous and unrighteous rulers in the past, all to His ends.

What about you, Dad, Husband, Man of God? Work within your sphere of influence, and be a good citizen. You have a powerful influence within your family and potentially amidst your community and workplace(s). Remember whose you are and actual accordingly -- for suggestions, see Colossians 3.

Put your hope in God, not in princes.

Pray for Christians in Iraq

News today about changes in the provincial representation of minority groups in Iraq -- including Christians.

Pray for positive and disproportionate influence of our brothers and sisters in that county and region!

Honoring Your Wife

I love the way Mark Driscoll honors his wife Grace (Part 1, Part 2). He passionately talks about his love, her strengths, his weaknesses and failures, their marriage strengths as a couple.

Challenge: honor your wife in a similar way. You don't need to write a blog post for the entire Internet. Just sketch out your thoughts, imagine yourself testifying about her before your friends. Write it out.

Joe Carter's Open Letter to the "Religious Right"

Joe Carter, managing editor of Culture11, shares 11 thoughts in an open letter to the “religious right.”

I really appreciated his perspective and recommendations. Excerpts:

“We have ideological enemies (such as Islamic terrorists) and ideological opponents (such as secular liberals). While our ideological opponents want us to lose political debates; our ideological enemies want us to lose our lives. That's a crucial distinction that we should always keep in mind.”

“Cultural reform is needed even more than political reform. As Andrew Fletcher, an 18th century Scottish patriot, once boldly proclaimed, "If one were permitted to make all the ballads one need not care who should make the laws of a nation." Fletcher understood that cultural influence was vastly more important than political power. We once understood this point too. It's time to remind ourselves that, as James Carville might have said, "It's the culture, stupid."

“It is not enough for religious conservatives to simply baptize the conservative agenda; our political beliefs must be derived from our religious worldview. Doing that, however, requires developing such a worldview and knowing how to derive political policy prescriptions from the principles. While the difficulty of the task makes it easier to accept off-the-rack conservatism, we need to be able to tailor our policies from the fabric of our faith.”

“There are those who call us "Christianists" and claim we are attempting to "impose a theocracy" because name-calling and scaremongering are easier than engaging us in debate. But there are also those who makes such claims out of honest ignorance. For example, many of the people who use the term "theocracy" are probably unaware that the largest Protestant denomination in America, Southern Baptists, cannot even tolerate a centralized church government much less a central government controlled by the church. Thinking that a nation full of Southern Baptists wants to establish a theocratic regime is about as absurd as believing anarchists want to create a centralized government. Keep in mind, though, that we live in a country where 34 percent of the population believes in UFOs and ghosts; we shouldn't be surprised to find that Americans will believe just about anything.”

“…we must recognize that America is not a "Christian nation", though we should aspire to be a nation where those of us who are Christians are admired as good and noble citizens. America is not a "shining city on a hill", though we should let our light of freedom be a shining example for the entire world. America is not the "greatest blessing God gave mankind", though it is a great nation worthy of our conditional adoration. Patriotic sentiment has its place but we mustn't let it expand beyond its acceptable borders. We are citizens of both the City of God and the City of Man and must always be careful not to confuse the one for the other.

Check out the whole article. Recommended for sharing!

Assignment: Gratitude!

It seems everywhere we turn there's bad news. Discouraging stuff. Financial institutions failing. Bombs killing innocents. People out of work. Riots. Storms and flooding and fires. Politicians promsing catastrophe of OT proportions if you vote for the other guy. Uncertainty at every turn. "Can you hear the flushing sound? Ka-wooooshhh!" says my neighbor.

Yup, the world is not peaches and cream. There's trouble. People are hurting. I don't seek to diminish this, but Dad, if your kids only hear you talking about this they'll lose sight of the great things of God we experience in Christ. You need to give them perspective, balance, and the tools to think wisely.

Here's an assignment: gratitude!

Why gratitude? Because a thankful heart keeps us right with God, and with one another. "Grateful kids do not commit suicide. Grateful husbands and wives do not get divorced." -- Lee Brower

Try this yourself, right now: Write down 4 things you're thankful for, or accomplishments you're proud of. Make sure two of them are true in the last 24 hours.

Next: Decide how you will cultivate thankfulness in the next 24 hours.

Finally: Think of one good thing that nobody else is recognizing enough, and then communicate it to your family.

I'd like to credit Perry Marshall for whacking me up the head with these ideas.

Yacht Delivery

I'm not sure how many of my readers will ever have a customized yacht delivered to them, but if you do I hope your experience is better than this.

Thoughtful Views on the Emergent Church

If you're confused about all the "emergent" church conversations, and maybe a little concerned about what you're hearing, you aren't alone.

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church, helpfully talks about four different streams of the emergent movement, based on a 2-x-2 "grid":

Don't Change Change
----------------------------------------
Doctrine
----------------------------------------
Practice
----------------------------------------

Pastor Driscoll argues for retaining orthodox doctrines (consistent with Jude 3), and being willing to change our practices to reach a changing culture. He helpfully warns about the problems that are occur when we abandon doctrines on scripture, Jesus Christ, gender, sin, salvation, the cross, hell, and authority.

Go here to get the 4 page PDF file, titled "A Pastoral Perspective on the Emergent Church." Excellent, concise, worth reading.

House Churches in Iran

We tend to forget that God has His people all over. Pray for the house churches in Iran as they come under more persecution. Imagine what God is doing to use these lights in the darkness and confusion of that country!

Rejecting Absolute Truth

From page 93 of Senator Obama's autobiography, "Audacity of Hope":

“It’s not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or “ism,” any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad. The Founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them. They were suspicious of abstraction and liked asking questions, which is why at every turn in our early history theory yielded to fact and necessity.”

Wrong.

The founders did believe in absolute truth. (Yes, some were deists.) The opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence rings with absolute truth:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Gene Vieth goes into this in more detail here and here -- recommended.

I do not know Senator McCain's views on absolute truth. That Senator Obama's worldview dismisses absolute truth does not surprise me, but does concern me.

Rumors Flyin', What To Do?

There are plenty of rumors, accusations, and innuendo flying around about all four candidates for President and Vice President.

Candidly, it says a lot about the gossipy-nature of our hearts and minds that we *love* this stuff. We love reading it. We love sharing it. We reward publishers with our attention. A reasonable interpretation of our our behavior is that we like being misinformed!

So what should a godly man do? Check the facts!
What should YOU do? Check the facts!

Here's one site with a good history of reliability: FactCheck.org

You can find out whether Senator Obama's bill fostered sex ed for kindergarteners (McCain's ad is a clear distortion), Governor Palin banned books in the Wasilla library (she didn't), etc.

Christians Attacked in India

Our brothers and sisters in India are suffering from violent attacks, and there are curious gaps in reporting. The hurricane and political election news in the US pretty much swamps out attention for these events. Please pray for them, and for the growth of God's kingdom in India.

How Husbands and Fathers Should Model Citizenship

One of my friends wrote and asked why I hadn't been blogging about the presidential candidates and exciting conventions. "There's loads of material!" he needlessly pointed out.

Here's the thing: part of me wants to, and I think a wiser, more mature part of me decided not to add redundant thinking and ascerbic commentary. Besides, the focus of this blog is not politics, but about encouraging husbands and fathers.

So in the hope of encouraging husbands and fathers as they model citizenship to others in their family and community, I offer some observations and predictions:

The US economy has many, many parts and interconnections. There is not a single economy, however much people may want to boil it down to a handful of numbers. The US economy is incredibly interwined with the larger global economy.

The falling value of the US dollar relative to many currencies is a symptom. We do not know the full extent of the disease(s), nor are there simple cures.

There is a desperate need for voters to be thinking carefully, and critically about the "facts" presented, their source, how they are presented, and what might be missing. Be particularly careful about statistics. (Mark Twain remarked about the man who had one arm in the icebox and the other in the oven, and on average was comfortable.).

Likewise, work forward from proposals offered, and consider possible consequences. Who benefits and who does not? By what degree? There is no free lunch. What is the timescale for results? I think a primary reason why systems thinking is not taught effectively is that this knowledge framework could undermine a lot of flimsy leadership authority. Oh, and it takes more thinking effort than swallowing sound-bites.

No matter whom is elected, he will be tested by terrorists and foreign powers (especially Iran, Russia, Syria, North Korea, and China). They will want to evaluate the words-deeds match, and how much they can cross lines and get away with it. And I think it will happen soon -- probably while many positions in the executive branch remain unfilled, and foreign power relationships are still being established.

Speaking of positions, whom the president selects as cabinet members and other principals is crucial. There is effectively no forecasting of choices during the campaign itself. There is a little more forecasting about judicial choices.

Nearly all professional politicians are sincere, and believe what they are saying. Sincerity is not a measure of truth.

Whomever is elected will have roughly 1/2 the country upset with him. All the time. That's 150 million people in the US, and more millions around the world. He should be very, very nice to the Secret Service.

Given the challenges and risks, anyone who actually wants to be President has disqualified himself or herself. I'm about half-serious on this.

The United Nations will remain the U.N., irrespective of whom is President. It is a macro-system unto itself. I think they have resolutioned themselves into irrelevancy.

Currently less than half of potential taxpayers in the US pay any federal tax at all. Irrespective of which party controls the executive and legislative branches in 2009, there will likely be increased taxes on a subset of potential taxpayers. As much as I would prefer a flat tax or national sales tax, I believe there is far too much political power invested in our current tax system to be abandoned by the same people whom benefit the most from manipulating it.

The serious breakdown of families across generations opens up an apparent need for more government action. Where husbands and fathers strive to do the right things, honoring God, serving their families and communities, you have progressively less need for government solutions. This strength can endure.

We've been fortunate in many ways that the current US House and Senate have passed very few bills or significant resolutions. It would seem that they have a greater appetite for waiting and positioning for 2009, than actually working through difficult decisions now. Expect gridlock to continue. Even with a filibuster-proof Senate (60 Democratic seats), I think the president will still be challenged to fulfill the big-ticket agendas.

By fall 2009, I predict the total number of issues and challenges and complaints about American politics will be unchanged. Emphasis may have shifted, but not the total. Americans simultaneously expect too much of government and government leaders, and love to complain about shortcomings and inadequacies. It's a near-perfect reinforcing loop. It's sport.

With all our struggles, poor trendlines, up and downs, the U.S. remains a remarkably blessed country. We deserve much judgment, but have received much, much more mercy.

We should be grateful that we serve a sovereign Lord to whom "the nations are like a drop in a bucket" (Is 40:15) We should be good citizens (which means paying attention and making careful voting decisions) and remember the perspective that no government or leader is a substitute for the lordship of Jesus Christ.

P.S. I do like Peggy Noonan's description of how the Democratic and Republican parties take different sympathies:

"Democrats in the end speak most of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the government's treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers.
Who happen, also, to be a generally beset-upon group.
Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state, local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations. At Republican conventions they express sympathy for this woman, as they do for those who are entrepreneurial, who start businesses and create jobs and build things. Republicans have, that is, sympathy for taxpayers. But they don't dwell all that much, or show much expressed sympathy for, the sick mother with the uninsured kids, and the soldier with the shot nerves.
Neither party ever gets it quite right, the balance between the taxed and the needy, the suffering of one sort and the suffering of another. You might say that in this both parties are equally cold and equally warm, only to two different classes of citizens."

That fairly sums up a lot about domestic politics, though does not address fundamental differences on foreign policy.

Teach the Jesus Way

If you do any Bible teaching, you might be interested in "Teach the Jesus Way."

Recommended: Wild Goose Chase

Mark Batterson's new book, "Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God" is delightful, accessible, and just the thing God could use to speak to you.

If you aren't yet where you need to be, get this book.
Highly recommended!

Capturing the Differences Between Men and Women

This cartoon captures a lot of the differences between men and women.

McCain and Obama at Saddleback -- Transcripts

Here are the transcripts of the Rick Warren Q&A with Senators McCain and Obama.

You weren't seriously going to be satisfied with the AP news summary, were you?

Harsh Language

Mark Driscoll talks (about 4-5 minutes) about harsh language in the Bible -- potent, effective, infrequent, and usually reserved for religious hypocrites.

Wild Goose -- Chase It Down!

Mark Batterson's new book, Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God, will be released tomorrow. The free "Yawning Angels" chapter from this new book has whetted my appetite!

I've been blessed by Mark's Evotional blog, his book "In the Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day," and his sermons.

Postmodernism, Explained

You see the word 'postmodernism' a lot. Can you define it? I'm completely serious -- can you explain it to someone else?

This J.P. Moreland explanation of postmodernism vs. modernism is excellent, and only about 2 pages. Recommended.

Dangers of Politicized Science

Michael Chrichton's novel "State of Fear" includes an appendix essay on the "Dangers of Politicized Science." I also recommend Chrichton's speech on the problems with a religous approach to environmentalism. He has posted the text from several other speeches on complexity theory, science policy, and genetic research.

Fair warning: Mr. Chrichton is not writing from an explicitly Christian perspective. He does work from a moral framework. I do not agree with all his recommendations.

The reason I recommend his material to you is because I want to encourage efforts towards clear thinking, dialogue that comes out of humility rooted in our incredibly limited understanding of complex systems, and a perspective that does not ignore our human fallibilities in working together. Chrichton has done his homework and critical thinking, and is more practiced than most writers at systematic integration of data across fields. So I believe he is worth listening to.

Keep in mind that our children and grandchildren are growing up in a technologically-sophisticated world. They need our help to learn how to assess options from a biblical framework, and how not to be snookered by sound bites and politicians who have developed an ability to smile even as they straddle a barb-wire fence.

Churchill on Books

"If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or, as it were, fondle them--peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on their selves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you will at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances."

"And What Does Your Daddy Do?"

You don't hear much about them in the news, but we have many brothers and sisters in Christ living amidst the muslim Palestinians. Here is an amazing story of the son of a Hamas leader who rejected Islam and is following Jesus. May our Lord magnify His name through him!

It's important to reinforce to ourselves and our children, that the Lord can save anyone. No heart is too desperately wicked, no one is too angry, no one is beyond redemption. If he saved you, then He can do it again.

There's a Whole Lot of Space

We've just returned from a long driving visit to see relatives in distant states...and I'm grateful for God's traveling mercies.

One overwhelming impression: there is a whole lot of empty space in the US!

Perspective...and Wisdom

Useful insights about perspective, from Clay Collins:

“We desperately lack perspective because we are a society of workaholics, and workaholism is like kryptonite to perspective. … There are no perspective hacks. None. You just have to suck it up, live a little, and wallow in the mud of life. You have to get your hands dirty with this beautiful business of living. You have to question, meditate, and fail often. You simply have to make space for perspective and hope that it will come eventually. You have to spend time in a manner that would seem self-indulgent to most. (Source)

Clay is railing against productivity that leads to workaholism. But he raises an important point that there are no instant shortcuts to perspective.

May I suggest another word for perspective, a biblical word?

Wisdom.

We need to live wisely – to think wisely, speak wisely, plan wisely, act wisely. Where do we go for wisdom? The Lord and His Word.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” (James 1:5)

Creating time and space to interact with our Lord and Master – through prayer, study, meditation, service to others – is what leads to wisdom development in us. We can’t force it or hurry it, this is a work of God. We can choose to be more cooperative to God’s ways.

How Would You Spend $10B?

The Copenhagen Consensus has looked at the economic return on investing large amounts of money into solving various problems -- reduce CO2, healthier foods for children, fight terrorists, prevent malaria, etc.

I don't think anyone argues that we should prioritize our investments of energy, people, and money strictly by projected economic return. But it is useful to go through the analysis, because it uncovers certain biases and assumptions. In short, it's humbling to our pride.

BTW, training and supporting missionaries isn't on their list.

Leadership Checkup

Peter Mead provides great coaching to preachers, and all church leaders, by pointing us back to 1 Peter 5:1-4. Submit yourself to a checkup.

Myths Christians Believe About Wealth and Poverty

Christians need to be good thinkers and good economists -- in order to be good stewards for the Lord. Jay Richards points out eight myths that many Christians believe about economics:

The nirvana myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its live alternatives)
The zero-sum game myth (believing that wealth gained in one place always means that wealth was lost someplace else)
The materialist myth (believing that intellect cannot create new wealth)
The greed myth (believing that the essence of capitalism is greed)
The usury myth (believing that charging interest on money is always exploitive)
The piety myth (focusing on our good intentions rather than the unintended consequences of our actions)
The artsy myth (confusing aesthetic judgments with economic arguments)
The freeze frame myth (believing that things always stay the same—for example, assuming population trends will continue indefinitely or treating “rich” and “poor” as static categories

Textbooks for Children in Saudi Arabia

The revised-to-be-less-strident textbooks using in schools in Saudia Arabia and around the world remain plainly hateful. Anne Applebaum writes in the Washington Post about multiple choice questions like this one:

Q. "Is belief true in the following instances:
(a) A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.
(b) A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the unbelievers.
(c) A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the unbelievers."

The correct answer, of course, is (c): According to the Wahhabi imams who wrote this textbook, it isn't enough to simply worship God or just to love other believers; it is important to hate unbelievers, too. By the same token, (b) is wrong as well: Even a man who worships God cannot be said to have "true belief" if he also loves unbelievers.

"Unbelievers," in this context, are Christians and Jews. In fact, any child who attends Saudi schools until ninth grade will eventually be taught outright that "Jews and Christians are enemies of believers." They will also be taught that Jews conspire to "gain sole control over the world," that the Christian crusades never ended, and that on Judgment Day "the rocks or the trees" will call out to Muslims to kill Jews.

Stay focused on Jesus, and teach your children the contrasting messages from Scripture: Love your neighbor as yourself. Pray for those who persecute you. Do not return evil for evil.

Using Movies as Conversation-Launchers With Boys

Men, you can use movies as great conversation-launchers with your boys. I enjoyed the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It's a big action film, too dark for younger kids, and does not have a specific religious aspect to the plot. But the characters wrestle with great questions:

• How much will you sacrifice to protect and save the innocent?
• How do you combat evil (yes, evil!) without becoming evil? Where do you draw lines that you won't cross?
• Would you kill others to save yourself, even if you perceived they were "worse" people than you are?
• What is a man's civic responsibility and how is this related to protecting his family?

The Joker character is completely evil, completely amoral, and the movie makes it clear that you cannot blame his environment for his behavior.

These are great themes to explore with your boys, as you coach them about being a man. With older boys, movies like The Patriot and Saving Private Ryan are helpful for conversation-launching.

Thinking Clearly About The "It's Like Interracial Marriage" Argument

Dennis Prager gives some clarity to counter the argument that we should be no more opposed to same-sex marriages than to interracial marriages.

Three Interactions to Develop Your Leadership

Perry Noble writes about three levels of interactions to develop our leadership:

Spend time with 'Those Who Are Where We Have Been'
Spend time with 'Those Who Are Currently Where I Am Currently'
Spend time with 'Those Who Are Where I Want To Go'

Good insights into the value of each environment, if we're willing to learn.

There Are Things Far Worse Than Illness

"The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well. Some cancer patients recover; some don't. But the ordeal of facing your mortality and feeling your frailty sharpens your perspective about life. You appreciate little things more ferociously. You grasp the mystical power of love. You feel the gravitational pull of faith. And you realize you have received a unique gift – a field of vision others don't have about the power of hope and the limits of fear; a firm set of convictions about what really matters and what does not. You also feel obliged to share these insights – the most important of which is this: There are things far worse than illness – for instance, soullessness."

-- Tony Snow, 2005

New EFCA Statement of Faith

Christianity Today has a nice article about the recently approved updates to the EFCA statement of faith. I agree, it's better to adjust doctrinal statements before there is a crisis.

No, We're Not Post-Modern!

William Lane Craig gives us some great thoughts about our modern thinking, which is NOT post-modern. (This is from his great article, "God is Not Dead Yet" in CT. )

"The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that’s not postmodernism; that’s modernism! That’s just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can’t prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste. We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

Otherwise, how do we make sense of the popularity of the New Atheism? Dawkins and his ilk are indelibly modernist and even scientistic in their approach. On the postmodernist reading of contemporary culture, their books should have fallen like water on a stone. Instead, people lap them up eagerly, convinced that religious belief is folly.

Seen in this light, tailoring our gospel to a postmodern culture is self-defeating. By laying aside our best apologetic weapons of logic and evidence, we ensure modernism’s triumph over us. If the church adopts this course of action, the consequences in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism will continue to shape our culture’s view of how the world really is.

Christians who depreciate natural theology because “no one comes to faith through intellectual arguments” are therefore tragically shortsighted. For the value of natural theology extends far beyond one’s immediate evangelistic contacts. It is the broader task of Christian apologetics, including natural theology, to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women. It thereby gives people the intellectual permission to believe when their hearts are moved."

HT: Kevin Nelstead at GeoChristian

It's Not Either/Or...

$4 gasoline in the US will drive a lot of change, even in the US Congress. Amidst all the political hem-hawing of this election year, it does look like representatives are more open to drilling and to alternative power. Joseph Petrowkski gives advice to both the Republicans and the Democrats on a both/and strategy, rather than squabbling about an either/or direction.

The demand for electricity isn't going down, either. So we need creative ideas on alternatives.

T.Boone Pickens has some big ideas about building up wind power to replace the use of natural gas-powered electric plants, and then converting cars to run on natural gas. This would, in my opinion, be a nice complement to electric cars, even if batteries can be made more efficient.

I'd like to see more nuclear plants for electricity, but we'll need something else to be operating sooner; it takes 15-20 years or more to build a nuclear power plant and make it operational.

Update: my friend B.R. sent me this article advocating using mass production techniques (and likely employing many laid-off auto workers and others with these skills) to build modularized nuclear power plants in just 40 months.

The Vastness of the Power of the Shed Blood

"Do you see more worth and merit in one drop of Christ's blood to save you, than in all the sins of the world to condemn you?" -- John Bunyan

1776 Christians

Mark Batterson cites a list of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and their strong Christian faith:

John Witherspoon was an ordained minister and authored several books of sermons, as well as editing America's first family Bible published in 1791.

Charles Thomson served as Secretary of Congress and was a Biblical scholar. He helped edit the first American translation of the Greek Septuagint into English.

Charles Carroll, the last of the fifty-six signers to pass away at the age of 95 in 1832, wrote out his declaration of faith at the age of eighty-nine. "On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for my salvation, and on His merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts."

Another Founding Father, Benjamin Rush, is considered the "Father of American Medicine." He personally trained three thousand medical students. Dr. Rush also founded "The First Day Society" which was the precursor to the Sunday School movement, as well as founding America's first Bible society. It was Benjamin Rush who said the Constitution was "as much the work of Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament were the effects of divine power."

Francis Hopkinson was a church music director and edited one of the first hymnals printed in America in 1767. He also set 150 psalms to music.

Roger Sherman is the only Founding Father to sign all four of America's Founding documents: the Articles of Association in 1774, the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Articles of Confederation in 1778, and the U.S. Constitution in 1787. Roger Sherman was also a theologian. He wrote a personal creed that was adopted by his church: "I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God, and a complete rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him."

Training Your Kids About Media Bias

I believe it's important to train your kids about media bias -- the simple truth is that most journalistic media accounts and other presentations they'll see have some bias. Learning to work through the bias is a key aspect of thinking critically and wisely.

One issue is that it's very difficult to present a complete story. On the evening news, a feature story might take 3-4 minutes. How much of a complex issue can you cover in 3-4 minutes? So the format itself creates bias by imposing limitations. Even in very long newspaper articles, you usually find incomplete representation of all perspectives on a story. So training your children to ask the questions "What didn't they include?" and "Is there another perspective?" is helpful.

Journalism is better at presenting the sensational and the different, than the ordinary and the steady. Frankly, most journalism in free countries is really driven by advertisers looking for audience size and attention. Therefore, help your children understand that the news is not representative of the whole. For example, if there is a plane crash, you can remind everyone in your family that tens of thousands of flights didn't crash today. That's ordinary, and therefore not newsworthy. I bring this up because reading the newspaper or watching the evening news can leave people with the feeling that everything is out of control and spinning badly -- which simply is not true.

The people writing or producing a news story have biases and filters (just like you and me -- they're human). Train your children to consider the point of view in a news story. Gene Veith says this well: "Notice the POINT OF VIEW of a story; that is, not just the ideas as such, but, as in literature, the character through whose mind everything is presented. Who is the “us” and who is the “them”?"

And I think you need to be candid about our own biases and filters. It says something that I have to force myself to read NY Times articles and consider the perspectives presented there, but do not have the same difficulty with the WSJ opinion page.

Our kids are going to have a lot of information thrown at them, and demand quick decisions and allegiance. Therefore give them guidance on evaluating information, and you immediately help them make better decisions.

What tips do you have about helping your kids with media bias?

Arab and Muslim Are Not the Same Thing

Be responsible for speaking accurately about peoples and religious groups.

Here is a good starter education on Middle East peoples and religious groups.

We Could Use a Few More Studds

Mark Batterson points us to a daring twentieth-century missionary, C.T. Studd, who said

"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."

Christian Meditation

Christian meditation is the practice of focusing our thoughts on the revealed Word of God -- not trying to empty our minds, which is the Eastern meditation strategy.

I recommend this article on meditation by Henry Blackaby. He has a wonderful definition:

"Meditation is that moment when God confronts you with the truth about Himself. It is that moment when you go into the presence of God and let God discuss it with you until you know exactly how to respond to Him, however long it takes."

Constitutional Documents -- Online and Indexed!

Great resource: The Constitutional Sources Project

Capacity for Inconsistency

Human beings have an amazing capacity for inconsistent thinking. We are capable of enormous outrage over something wrong, but not its equivalent in another setting.

Here's a nice example, by Tony Woodlief:

"In an emotion-laden account, NPR's Terry Gross exposed the brutality of partial-birth abortion today. She interviewed photojournalist Brent Stirton, who "took a photograph that shocked the world," as NPR explains, the victims "murdered, execution-style...simply slaughtered."
Just kidding. They're up in arms about some gorillas that got killed in the Congo. Not to belittle the atrocity. I mean, they're sentient beings, and in many ways they resemble humans. The gorillas, I mean. Not those fetus thingys."

You can find the same kind of problem among any group of people, on many subjects. (Everyone except me, of course, since I'm perfectly consistent in every way :-)

Because it is common, it's an excellent debating tool, and a constructive tool for dialogue. For example, I was recently challenged to think consistently about my views on government support for an in-prison program by Christians. We can help one another think more clearly, more carefully, more humbly. No worries, I got the guy back on his demands for windfall profit taxes on Big Oil profits but not on his relatives' corn and soybean profits.

At the core we overestimate our wisdom and maturity. We ooze pride and hubris. Let us marvel at our Lord Jesus, looking to His examples for perfectly balancing grace and truth, toughness and tenderness.

Spiritual Directors

Eugene Peterson writes about the importance of spiritual directors.

This is not something I hear about commonly pursued today. I wonder if that is a reflection of our general shallow maturity -- there simply aren't many people qualified!

Pew Forum Results Don't Surprise Me -- Here's Why

The Pew Forum recently released a study of religious views in the United States -- and it's getting a fair amount of media exposure. Don't depend on this blog post or sound bites in the media if you're really interested. Check out the actual report for yourself.

The analysis is based on a survey of 35,000 people. This sounds like a big number, but given the breadth of religious groups identified, some of the groups might have 50-200 people, and are those numbers representative? Maybe. I'm not a statistician, but it's likely they've done some reasonable analysis.

Survey results are often skewed by the way questions are asked. When 21% of self-categorized athiests say they believe in God (yes, it's in the report), you have to wonder if it's the questions, or is that genuinely true for the group? Also, respondents are grouped as politically liberal, moderate, or conservative -- how was that determined?

Having written a few surveys over the years, and looked at the results, I know how difficult it is to do them well. And this makes me very suspicious, by experience, of political polls and politicians who would steer by them!

Let's assume that all the results are accurate, all the labels are legitimate, and large numbers of Christians believe there is more than one way to heaven, that God is an impersonal force, or that the Bible is not the authoritative Word of God.

I'm not surprised by this. It shows up in the way American Christians live. The biblical knowledge of many -- including those who have been in church services regularly for many years -- is shallow, and they have a weak doctrinal foundation. There is an incredible syncretism between secular and non-Christian religious ideas and orthodox Christian teaching. These things are evident to Bible teachers and pastors everywhere.

But rather than being discouraged, I am encouraged. Our Lord has granted us a wonderul ministry opportunity, a MASSIVE opportunity! Let us keep teaching the Bible to change lives!

Observations on Feedback Response and Legislative Perspectives

Brian Wesbury, an economist, gives some useful perspective on the speed of feedback responses today (much, much faster than in the past) and the fix-it-through legislation perspective of both Obama and McCain:

Americans have had it so good, for so long, that they seem to have
forgotten what government's heavy hand does to living standards and economic
growth. But the same technological innovation that is causing all this
dislocation and anxiety has also created an information network that is as near
to real-time as the world has ever experienced.
For example, President Bush
put steel tariffs in place in March 2002. Less than two years later, in December
2003, he rescinded them. This is something most politicians don't do. But
because the tariffs caused such a sharp rise in the price of steel, small and
mid-size businesses complained loudly. The unintended consequences became
visible to most Americans very quickly.
Decades ago the feedback mechanism was slow. The unintended consequences of the New Deal took too long to show up in the economy. As a result, by the time the pain was publicized, the connection to misguided government policy could not be made. Today, in the midst of Internet Time, this is no longer a problem. So, despite protestations from staff at the White House, most people understand that food riots in foreign lands and higher prices at U.S. grocery stores are linked to ethanol subsidies in the U.S., which have sent shock waves through the global system.
This is the good news. Policy mistakes will be ferreted out very quickly. As a result, any politician who attempts to change things will be blamed for the unintended
consequences right away.
Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama view the world from a legislative
perspective. Like the populists before them, they seem to believe that
government can fix problems in the economy. They seem to believe that what the
world needs is a change in the way government attacks problems and fixes the
anxiety of voters. This command-and-control approach, however, forces a
misallocation of resources. And in Internet Time this will become visible in
almost real-time, creating real political pain for the new president.
In contrast to what some people seem to believe, having the government take over
the health-care system is not change. It's just a culmination of previous moves
by government. And the areas with the worst problems today are areas that have
the most government interference – education, health care and energy.

John Adams

I received a delightful Father's Day gift -- the DVD set of the HBO film series, John Adams, based on the David McCullough book.

The film series is excellent. I would think it would be appropriate for older teens through adults. There are some scenes that I would not recommend for younger children, and frankly the pacing and plot are not likely to hold the attention of a younger child.

The texture, detail, and difficulty of living in colonial America is brought to your eyes and ears. That generation would rightly call us soft.

The film is even better than the book at bringing out the decadence of Paris as an assault on John Adams' sensibilities.

The special features show how many special effects were used, but they're transparent and so good that you don't realize you're watching a post-processing effect at all. So there is no distraction from the plot.

I have a few wishes, though. The film focuses more on some of the darker elements of Adams' life, and makes him seem much more douer than other accounts. (It's difficult to imagine such a uniformly grumpy man being successful if public life.) Also, there is very little religious aspect brought out in the film, though it's clear that the Adams were deeply religious.

Still, I hope the film series piques more interest in our history, and more appreciation for the hand of Providence in the lives of men and women. On this last point, if you'll also read McCullough's excellent 1776, it will be hard to believe that God was not protecting people and steering events.

My advice would be to watch the film series, then read the book for the fuller story.

Gay Rights vs. Religious Rights

Gene Veith writes about the legal battles between gay rights and religious rights.

"In a remarkable cultural and moral inversion, homosexuals now occupy the moral high ground, and religious people who oppose homosexuality are now perceived as the bad guys."

I realize that not all religious people believe homosexual behavior is wrong. Many do. The legal issue is how to reconcile freedoms of religious belief and practice (1st Amendment) with changing cultural norms.

Granting Constitutional Rights to Non-Citizens

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Boumediene v. Bush to grant non-citizens the right to petition citizen courts challenging the legality of their detentions.

Personally I'm with Justice Scalia on this decision: it's a bad decision that does not square with the U.S. Constitution or consistent legal precedence from the Civil War forward. While there can be innocent people imprisoned by the military as enemy combatants, this "solution" creates serious problems in the future.

Several people I've spoken with have swallowed the sound bite that this will force the closure of Guantanamo Bay and the immediate release of all the prisoners. Not so. It says that the prisoners have the right to a hearing in a civil court of law. (In practice, I would speculate some prisoners might be released more quickly than others.)

John Piper points out something important to remember: I'm blessed to live in a country where the president follows the rule of law, even if he doesn't agree with it. There are restraints on power.

And I am grateful for our sovereign Lord.

Dad's -- Stay the Course!

I'm always glad to see Father's Day come around, if only because it's the one time of year in the U.S. when the dominant cultural themes are not working to portray dad as a dweeb. (For example, how many strong father figures show up in television shows vs. an idiot or cruel father figure?)

And it's also a time when journalists publish numbers like these:

The extent of the problem is clear. The nation's out-of-wedlock birth rate is 38%. Among white children, 28% are now born to a single mother; among Hispanic children it is 50% and reaches a chilling, disorienting peak of 71% for black children. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, nearly a quarter of America's white children (22%) do not have any male in their homes; nearly a third (31%) of Hispanic children and over half of black children (56%) are fatherless.
This represents a dramatic shift in American life. In the early 1960s, only 2.3% of white children and 24% of black children were born to a single mom. Having a dad, in short, is now a privilege, a ticket to middle-class status on par with getting into a good college.
The odds increase for a child's success with the psychological and financial stability rooted in having two parents. Having two parents means there is a greater likelihood that someone will read to a child as a preschooler, support him through school, and prevent him from dropping out, as well as teaching him how to compete, win and lose and get up to try again, in academics, athletics and the arts. Maybe most important of all is that having a dad at home is almost a certain ticket out of poverty; because about 40% of single-mother families are in poverty.
"If you are concerned about reducing child poverty then you have to focus on missing fathers," says Roland Warren, president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, based in Gaithersburg, Md. This organization works to encourage more men to be involved fathers.
The odds are higher that a child without a dad will have more contact with the drug culture, the police and jail. Even in kindergarten, children living with single parents are more likely to trail children with two parents when it comes to health, cognitive skills and their emotional maturity. They are in the back of the bus before the bus – their life – even gets going.

What about you, Dad? Not feeling appreciated? Not getting much support for being the spiritual leader of your family? Weary of the drill?

Stay the course. No matter how you feel, fathering is more important than we realize in the moment.

Dad's Day

Happy Father's Day!

Be bold, be gentle.

Who Can You Encourage Today?

Men, who can you encourage today?

Please note I didn't ask "Who will you encourage today?" That's the second question :-)

Who CAN you encourage? Start there. Who comes to mind? And who comes to mind next? And after that?

The truth is that there are dozens if not hundreds of people around you that you can encourage. It requires only a small amount of others-first thinking to see them.

What can you do to encourage them? A brief word is all that's needed. Email, instant message, phone call, note left for them. You'd be surprised how much encouaragement an appropriate hug or handgrip will deliver. Point them back to the Lord. Remind them that they are not alone, or forgotten.

Now for that second question: Who will you encourage today? That's your follow-through.

Be bold, be gentle.

Flooding in Iowa

Several of you have written notes of concern, asking if we're ok. (Thank you!)

The flooding across Iowa is severe, and may surpass the 1993 flooding. Watering is pouring over the emergency spillway dam at Saylorville Lake -- doubling the Des Moines river flow heading into the city of Des Moines. Our family is fine, and our home is dry. There's more rain coming today and tomorrow.

Naming Names

Lawrence Solomon draws attention to the many scientists who are concerned about the problems with the models and data analysis used to support global warming, and also claims that Wikipedia is censoring articles related to global warming.

From the book jacket of The Deniers:

Al Gore says any scientist who disagrees with him on Global Warming is a kook,
or a crook. Guess he never met these guys:

Dr. Edward Wegman--former chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences--demolishes the famous "hockey stick" graph that launched the global warming panic.

Dr. David Bromwich--president of the International Commission on Polar Meteorology--says "it's hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now."

Prof. Paul Reiter--Chief of Insects and Infectious Diseases at the famed Pasteur
Institute--says "no major scientist with any long record in this field" accepts
Al Gore's claim that global warming spreads mosquito-borne diseases.

Prof. Hendrik Tennekes--director of research, Royal Netherlands
Meteorological Institute--states "there exists no sound theoretical framework
for climate predictability studies" used for global warming forecasts.

Dr. Christopher Landsea--past chairman of the American Meteorological
Society's Committee on Tropical Meteorology and Tropical Cyclones--says "there
are no known scientific studies that show a conclusive physical link between
global warming and observed hurricane frequency and intensity."

Dr. Antonino Zichichi--one of the world's foremost physicists, former president of
the European Physical Society, who discovered nuclear antimatter--calls global
warming models "incoherent and invalid."

Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski--world-renowned expert on the ancient ice cores used in climate research--says the U.N. "based its global-warming hypothesis on arbitrary
assumptions and these assumptions, it is now clear, are false."

Prof. Tom V. Segalstad--head of the Geological Museum, University of Oslo--says "most leading geologists" know the U.N.'s views "of Earth processes are implausible."

Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu--founding director of the International Arctic
Research Center, twice named one of the "1,000 Most Cited Scientists," says much
"Arctic warming during the last half of the last century is due to natural
change."

Dr. Claude Allegre--member, U.S. National Academy of Sciences and French Academy of Science, he was among the first to sound the alarm on the dangers of global warming. His view now: "The cause of this climate change is unknown."

Dr. Richard Lindzen--Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T., member, the National Research Council Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, says global warming alarmists "are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right."

Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov--head of the
space research laboratory of the Russian Academy of Science's Pulkovo
Observatory and of the International Space Station's Astrometria project says
"the common view that man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global
warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations."

Dr. Richard Tol--Principal researcher at the Institute for Environmental
Studies at Vrije Universiteit, and Adjunct Professor at the Center for
Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, at Carnegie Mellon
University, calls the most influential global warming report of all time
"preposterous . . . alarmist and incompetent."

Dr. Sami Solanki--director and scientific member at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who argues that changes in the Sun's state, not
human activity, may be the principal cause of global warming: "The sun has been
at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures."

Prof. Freeman Dyson--one of the world's most eminent physicists says the models used to justify global warming alarmism are "full of fudge factors" and "do not begin to describe the real world."

Dr. Eigils Friis-Christensen--director of the Danish National Space Centre, vice-president of the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, who argues that changes in the Sun's behavior could account for most of the warming attributed by the UN to man-made CO2.

It is curious that many of the same people who demand scientific critical analysis for the theory of evolution, appreciating that the data is complex and requires interpretation, and are concerned about "agenda-driven" evolution education, do not have the same standards for analysis of climate change. The proposed political solutions to reduce CO2 emissions are not economically neutral, nor will the increased regulatory power of government be inconsequential. Let us therefore be clear thinkers.

Books for Guys

Relatively few adult men read books for pleasure. Albert Mohler suggests this may be because no one has steered them to fascinating books that trip their trigger! Here are some of his recommendations.

Of course we need to read the Book of books, the Bible, for life.

Uniqueness of God's Grace

Most Christians fail to understand the uniqueness of God's grace as portrayed through the Bible (not just the NT, mind you, the whole Bible).

Robert M. Horn wrote:

"It is not found in any of the world's cults or religions, nor in much of what poses for Christianity. From the Pharisee's stress on deeds to the mystic's focus on meditation, all religions emphasize human achievement. They are all bilateral agreements: God does part, we do part.... But the God of Christianity is a God of unilateral action....God acted on his own, making a unilateral declaration of grace."