I'm very frustrated by McCain's lack of response to Obama's charge that "Republican policies" of deregulation are responsible for the current financial crisis.  I know that many of you disagree with McCain and are against Republican policies in general, but I do ask that in the interest of intellectual honesty and clarity, you all take a few minutes to review some facts so you can argue fairly for your position. 

From the New York Times, September 11, 2003:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago....

 

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the...Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

 

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Here's another excerpt from the Wall Street Journal about who endorsed and who opposed legislation to prevent this crisis:

In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then under Republican control, adopted a strong reform bill, introduced by Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Chuck Hagel, and supported by then chairman Richard Shelby. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006. All the Republicans on the Committee supported the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it. Mr. McCain endorsed the legislation in a speech on the Senate floor. Mr. Obama, like all other Democrats, remained silent....

 

If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005-2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it.

It turns out that the Democrats put pressure on Fannie and Freddie to lower their standards in order to enable people to buy homes who really couldn't afford to.  This was done out of compassion, but as I've explained before, misplaced compassion can have disastrous consequences when it directs government policy at the expense of standards and justice.  

In terms of the debate itself so far, I'm really interested to know what health care has to do with foreign policy.  What's going on with these questions?

The Emerging Church is officially dead...at least, the name is dead.  Dan Kimball says of the term, "I can't defend or even explain theologically what is now known broadly as 'the emerging church' anymore, because it has developed into so many significantly different theological strands. Some I strongly would disagree with." 

"Emerging Church" is being dropped by people across the theological board.  It's no surprise that the term has become useless, for it doesn't define what must be the most central aspect of any church movement: the God they worship.  The many conceptions of God and Christianity that evolved without boundaries among the emerging churches couldn't be united on the lesser issues of evangelism and mission, as important as those issues are.  And when such a thing (uniting as an "Emerging" movement) was attempted, the result was often a greater focus on people and community (the subject of evangelism and mission) rather than on God simply because of the nature of the way the movement defined itself.  Beginning with defined doctrine is a much better way to make Christ the foundation--the focus--of a movement.

Dan has a new network in the works that will try to make a fresh start in the direction he originally intended when he created the "Emerging Church" term:

The still unnamed network has agreed to start with the inclusive but orthodox theological foundation of the Lausanne Covenant, and they intend to emphasize mission and evangelism. They appear to have learned from the emerging church’s mistake--define purpose and doctrine early so your identity doesn’t get hijacked.

(HT: Stand to Reason)

I was appalled, but not particularly surprised to read the following in an article about the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. handgun ban:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority [who said the ban was unconstitutional] "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons." 

Stevens is right--the majority is out of control.  What next?  Will they be claiming that the Framers chose to limit the government's tools to ban religion?  Speech?  Based on some supposed document that was created over 200 years ago?  Ridiculous!  Where will this madness end?  Why is it okay for them to force their belief in this so-called "Bill of Rights" on us?

I, for one, will be voting for Obama in the fall.  All we need is one more justice on Stevens's side--one more--and we'll be freed from the confines of these supposed limitations on government imposed on us because of a few people's belief in some static, old document.  Those dead "Framers" have no right to impede our progress by telling our elected officials (and judges!) what they can't do.

From John Newton's An Authentic Narrative:

How many such casual events may we remark in the history of Joseph, which had each a necessary influence in his ensuing promotion!  If he had not dreamed, or if he had not told his dream; if the Midianites had passed by a day sooner or a day later; if they had sold him to any person but Potiphar; if his mistress had been a better woman; if Pharaoh's officers had not displeased their lord; or if any, or all these things had fallen out in any other manner or time than they did, all that followed [would have] been prevented:  the promises and purposes of God concerning Israel, their bondage, deliverances, polity, and settlement, must have failed; and, as all these things tended to, and centred in Christ, the promised Saviour, the desire of all nations would not have appeared; mankind had been still in their sins, without hope, and the counsels of God's eternal love in favour of sinners defeated.  Thus we may see a connection between Joseph's first dream and the death of our Lord Christ, with all its glorious consequences.  So strong, though secret, is the concatenation between the greatest and the smallest events.  What a comfortable thought is this to a believer to know, that amidst all the various interfering designs of men, the Lord has one constant design which he cannot, will not miss, namely, his own glory in the complete salvation of his people; and that he is wise, and strong, and faithful, to make even those things, which seem contrary to this design, subservient to promote it.

I can only respond with the words of Romans 11:33 and Psalm 139:6:  Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  It is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.

In Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world, women suffering under oppressive leaders are starting to cry out for the right to choose.  A quote from an AP article reveals the anguish of these women:

"How many times have I wished I were a man . . . [When the leader said he would continue to restrict women's choice,] he saddened and hurt me," wrote [a woman in an online forum] who said she listened to the speech 10 times. "I felt that my heart was about to explode in my chest . . . I am powerless."

This is nothing but a power play on the part of these sexist leaders to keep women down by denying them the right to do what they want with their own bodies.  We know, as Americans, how sacred the right to choose is.  This is the most fundamental right necessary to ensure equal participation for women in their communities.  You just heard for yourself in the above quote about the emotional hardships this lack of choice is causing for women.  We can't just sit here and allow this to happen!  Now is the time to stand up and be true to our most precious American value.  We have an obligation to work together to raise the status of these women by removing this barrier to bodily sovereignty because we know that nothing is more important than the right to choose.

At least the women there are starting to wake up and speak for themselves:

A'eeda Dahsheh is a Palestinian mother of four in Lebanon who said she supports al-Zawahri [and his denial of a woman's right to choose al-Qaida] and has chosen to raise children at home as her form of jihad. However, she said, she also supports any woman who chooses instead to take part in terror attacks.

Oh, wait . . . it matters what the choice is about?

There's a story in Judges about a man who sends his concubine out to be abused by the men of the town in order to save his own skin.  When he finds her dead in the morning, he sends parts of her body to all the tribes of Israel as a shocking, visual wake-up call revealing the depths of the country's moral depravity.

I imagine that the people of Israel who heard of this felt a nausea, horror, and sense of impending judgment similar to what I felt reading this today:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts [an art student at Yale] will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body . . . "I hope it inspires some sort of discourse," Shvarts said. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone."

There's a detailed description of the exhibit in the article, but there's no way I'm going to post it here.  All I can say is that our country is hurtling down a dark, ugly road if we're producing people like this woman.  How did the creation and destruction of human life become a clever way of "sparking conversation"?  We had better wake up.

Yale now insists that the whole project is a fake, but Shvarts is sticking to her story, saying her purpose was to point out that the "central ambiguity [of not knowing whether or not she was actually pregnant] defies a clear definition of the act [of miscarriage].  The reality of miscarriage is very much a linguistic and political reality, an act of reading constructed by an act of naming--an authorial act."  Second, she meant to "assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form, It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are 'meant' to do from their physical capability."  It was her goal to use her body outside the "narrative of reproduction" in order to shock people into acknowledging that it is the "prerogative of every individual" to explore other uses for his or her body.  (This, of course, would be absolutely true in a postmodern, Darwinist, Creatorless world.)

Connected with the obvious atrociousness of Shvarts sick use of human life is her view of art:

"I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity," Shvarts said. "I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be."

Art is a medium for politics and ideologies?  Whatever happened to goodness, truth, and beauty?  To uplifting the viewer?  Where did this new grotesque and ugly standard of art come from?  Why is this the only standard she knows of?  It's not hard to figure out that just like in the days of Judges, a country that loses sight of the living, holy, good God will soon be stripped of all beauty, and everything--good or evil--rather than being things to delight in or abhor, will be reduced to mere "statements."

Because of God, there is real beauty and it's tragic that so many people in our culture have never tasted it.  It's easy to forget when we're feasting on the glory of God that most people have no idea a banquet like this even exists.  Let this remind us of our responsibility to tell them.

(HT:  Steve Wagner)

We all expect the Spanish Inquisition to show up sooner or later in our discussions with atheists.  Does the presence of the Inquisition in Christian history discredit all of Christianity?  Does it render our past completely barbaric?

Here's a question that can help clarify the issues involved with the Inquisition objection:  Do you honor Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb, or do you merely scoff at him for not inventing a computer?  Edison explored the same world we explore, and yet he only invented a light bulb.  Was he a colossal failure?  Absolutely not.  Data (in this case, the data of the physical world) takes time to work through, sort out, and apply.  Edison had a less than perfect understanding of the world, but he furthered the process of our knowledge and application of the facts of nature by one more step, moving us all towards a more precise understanding of the one reality of nature that has existed since the beginning.  Eventually scientific data would lead to computers, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the beauty and wonder of the invention of the light bulb in its own time.  And even though at the time of the light bulb's creation there were many other false ideas about how to apply the laws of nature (the use of leeches, for example), the false applications did not discredit science for all time.

Now move this same idea away from science and into the realm of morality and Christianity.  Like the unchanging laws of nature, we have the unchanging words of God in the Bible.  And as in the world of science, in the world of Christianity we've had to work out our knowledge and application of those unchanging words into our societies.  This takes time because human societies started off so far from the ideal--with many false ideas and without knowledge of some true ideas of application that hadn't yet occurred to them.  (For example, the idea that a pluralistic society could peacefully exist and not tear itself apart looks obvious to us now, but before the cultural situation made the discovery of this radically new idea possible, it was assumed that one must enforce unanimity for the good of the citizens, in order to survive.)

It's no surprise, then, that 500 years ago societies had only reached the moral equivalent of the light bulb and not the computer; but the problem was in the application, not in the data.  That is, as inevitably as an application of the facts of the physical world led to computers, so the ideas of the Bible have led to the free societies we now see in the West.  But one ought not be surprised by the amount of time it took the societies of the West to work through ideas based on biblical data any more than one is surprised by the thousands of years it took us to work through scientific ideas based on the observable data of nature.  Nor does it make any more sense to fault the unchanging Bible itself for those societies' slow pace than it does to fault the always-present laws of nature for our formerly rudimentary ideas about science.  The Bible and nature remained the same even if the implications had not yet been fully explored and rightly applied.  And, as with the light bulb, we ought to honor the steps that were made in creating better societies rather than merely degrade the people of the past for not creating the inventions and institutions we have today.

But why, we may then ask, when first creating the nation of Israel, did God not immediately demand that they live as we do today?  The answer might be similar to the reason why He didn't supply them with computers.  A computer would have been completely beyond their grasp.  In the same way, Israel had a difficult enough time adjusting their society to what God did give them explicitly at that time.  Some things, to be fully understood, accepted, and lived out, have to be reached on our own as we struggle over time, learning little by little.  Applications of ideas are discovered and then take time to permeate and transform a society.  This, in turn, lays the groundwork for discovering more applications.

What God did do is speak to Israel where they were.  He addressed the world as they knew it, and He set a foundation of ideas in place through the Old and New Testaments that would infect societies in such a way that the spread of those ideas would eventually lead us to where we are today.  He told us that we're all--men and women--created in His image (Gen 1:27) and equal in value before Him (Gal 3:28, Philemon).  We're not to kidnap people and sell them into slavery (Ex 21:16), we're not to punish people in a way that humiliates them (Deut 25:3), we're not to make converts by the sword (John 3:5-8, 18:36), the State is under God and the law (Deut 17:14-20), no one--rich or poor (Lev 19:15), native or foreigner (Num 15:15-16)--is to be favored when justice is dispensed, and the foundation goes on and on.

Unfortunately, just as the lack of good scientific instruments slowed the discovery and application of the laws of nature, our moral weaknesses--stubbornness, ignorance, biases, selfishness, and inherited false beliefs--have made the application of the Bible to our societies a difficult, slow process.  This is why the Inquisition, while condemnable, is not unexpected or surprising and so does not successfully argue against the truthfulness of Christianity.  And in fact, it gives further witness to the truthfulness of the Bible's central message of our desperate need for Jesus and the forgiveness He provides.

You probably heard about the Berkeley City Council passing a motion declaring the Marine recruiters in their city "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" and about Code Pink's aggressive, ongoing protest against those recruiters, which includes carrying a banner with the words "No military predators in our town," calling the recruiters traitors, and physically blocking anyone trying to enter the recruitment center (as the police stand by, remaining "neutral").

But yesterday, I was told about a story you might not have heard.  Eamon Kelley, a Marine who was present at the continuing protest last week, witnessed an incident he described in an email to a friend:

While we were at the protest in Berkeley from 12 to 4 p.m., a white Volvo drove by and a man spat upon Code Pink.  They chased him down the street and got into a verbal altercation.  The police were NOWHERE in sight.  That’s not the best part, ready for this?  Medea Benjamin [co-founder of Code Pink] yelled, and I quote, “Marines!” She actually yelled for our help because this man had stepped out of his car.  I even asked her if she was yelling Police and she told me, “I said Marines” then put her arm around my friend Allen (the Marine Vet).  Ironic?

As I was listening to my roommate tell me about this, I admit I was hoping for some juicy justice in which the Marines said sadly, "I'm sorry, we've decided you were right.  You don't need us, and we should go away.  Good luck with your problems, there."  Nobody can deny that's exactly what they deserved.  But my snickers of anticipation were silenced when I heard there was no witty comeback from the Marines.  Apparently, they helped her.

The whole story ended up making me weep.  I wept at the strength, and mercy, and goodness of men who would risk their own safety to help a person who hated them, mocked them, picketed them, and demanded angrily that they leave town.  How, how were they able to do this in the face of such bitter and stark unfairness? 

I wept because I then saw the face of Jesus in these men--a beautiful, powerful, deeply humbling mercy towards me, His enemy.  In a new and biting way, I saw what I deserved, and the mercy of His self-sacrifice was suddenly beyond imagining.

I wept because I didn't see Him in me.  Lately, in dealing with those who mock the truth, I've been acting more like the spitting passerby who hated the protesters and wanted to punish them than the Marines who steadfastly persevered in serving them.  Oh, Lord, help me!  I don't know how to love people like that.  I can't love people like that. 

I wept for the people of this world who continue to scream at Jesus to leave them alone, stubbornly suffering the daily consequences of a life lived without Him.  There will be an end to God's patience, and the full, righteous, deserved justice will come.

May God have mercy on us all.

(Warning:  Spoilers ahead, touching on the last couple seasons.  If you don't watch Lost, turn off your computer now and go rent Season One!)

I've mentioned before that I've always been interested in stories that involve time travel of some sort, so I've enjoyed the direction Lost began to take last season.  But there's something different about this series.  Normally, the type of time travel described in a story will fall into one of two categories:  1) The people who go back in time change things, thereby creating a new future or even a new parallel universe (e.g., Back to the Future), or 2) The people go back in time, but the actions they take there don't change anything in the future because it was always the case that their actions in the past led up to the future they've always known.  That is, time is set--all of history already happened, and they already acted as a part of it (e.g., the ending of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). 

The time travel in Lost, on the other hand, describes a third kind of time--one governed by Providence or fate.  Certain characters go back in time and can change things (history is still fluid, as it is in Type 1), but no matter what they do, they can't ultimately thwart the purpose of God or fate (just who is in charge remains to be seen).  So, Desmond can keep changing the future by repeatedly saving one of the characters from death, but eventually, the death of that character will be accomplished by the one who is governing the flow of history, moving it in a precise direction for a purpose.

It would seem, at first glance, that J.J. Abrams (the creator of Lost) believes in God or some sort of designer.  But, as with his other work (e.g., Alias), he creates a scenario that I suspect reflects a kind of battle going on in his own head:  Some characters see intelligent design and/or evidence of the supernatural in what's happening, and some see only naturalistic explanations.  In Lost, that inner-Abrams battle is characterized as "faith" vs. "science," Locke vs. Jack, purpose vs. random circumstances.  What's interesting is that you're never quite sure which side will win, or even which side should win.

It's as if Abrams wants the supernatural to be true, but he can never quite get there because he loves science and can't see a way to bring the two into harmony--and even though he feels a pull towards the supernatural, he's a little suspicious of the people who embrace it.  They seem somewhat...unstable.  So he keeps the two perspectives (supernatural and natural) existing side by side, almost as two separate stories, with each pretending the other doesn't exist--never touching, except to occasionally butt heads.

Sounds like Abrams's ideas are a good reflection of what our culture has done with religion and rationality (which they wrongly equate with naturalism), and it's a sad, compartmentalized way to live.  The two can be brought together; we can live as whole, integrated people who embrace God and rationality because they embrace each other in an integrated, whole reality.  "Live together, die alone," right?  Someone send this man a copy of Total Truth.

There has been some talk about Frank Schaeffer's new book about his father, Crazy for God.  Os Guinness's review is now posted on the Books and Culture website:

The problem is not so much that Frank exposes and trumpets his parents' flaws and frailties, or that he skewers them with his characteristic mockery. It is more than that. For all his softening, the portrait he paints amounts to a death-dealing charge of hypocrisy and insincerity at the very heart of their life and work. In Frank's own words, his parents were "crazy for God." Their call to the ministry "actually drove them crazy," so that "religion was actually the source of their tragedy." His dad was under "the crushing belief that God had 'called' him to save the world." Because of this, his parents were "happiest when farthest away from their missionary work." Back at their calling, they were "professional proselytizers," their teaching was "indoctrination," and it was unclear whether people came to faith or were "brainwashed" and "under the spell" of his parents. Frank's own arguments in their support, he now says, were a kind of "circus trick". . . .

 

For six years I was as close to Frank as anyone outside his own family, and probably closer than many in his family. I was his best man at his wedding. Life has taken us in different directions over the past thirty years, but I counted him my dear friend and went through many of the escapades he recounts and many more that would not bear rehearsing in print. It pains to me say, then, that his portrait is cruel, distorted, and self-serving, but I cannot let it pass unchallenged without a strong insistence on a different way of seeing the story. There is all the difference in the world between flaws and hypocrisy. Francis and Edith Schaeffer were lions for truth. No one could be further from con artists, even unwitting con artists, than the Francis and Edith Schaeffer I knew, lived with, and loved.

Guinness gives some interesting thoughts in his review on what he thinks happened in the Schaeffer family to bring them to this point, with lessons for anyone trying to simultaneously guide a ministry and raise a family.

(HT:  Between Two Worlds)