A friend alerted me to a description of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right after the author, E. J. Dionne Jr., was featured on an hour of the Hugh Hewitt Show.  From the publisher, Princeton University Press: 

 

The religious and political winds are changing. Tens of millions of religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. And more and more secular Americans are discovering common ground with believers on the great issues of social justice, peace, and the environment. In Souled Out, award-winning journalist and commentator E. J. Dionne explains why the era of the Religious Right--and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage--is over.

 

Now, this is amazing.  If you vote on the right because you believe in those positions--and, in fact, believe they better reflect Christian values and goals--you are "selling out," and "abusing faith," and (from the next paragraph) you are a "prop for the powers that be" who is being "crudely exploited for political advantage."  But all this would be over if you would only learn to vote on the left!  If you favor positions on the left for exactly the same reasons, then you're just doing the right thing.  I think I know why people like Dionne are unable to see the unbelievable hypocrisy of this, and I'll explain in a moment.  But first, another excerpt:

 

Based on years of research and writing, Souled Out shows that the end of the Religious Right doesn't signal the decline of evangelical Christianity but rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda of such causes as opposition to gay marriage and abortion.  With insightful portraits of leading contemporary religious figures from Rick Warren and Richard Cizik to John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Dionne shows that our great religions have always preached a broad message of hope for more just human arrangements and refused to be mere props for the powers that be.

 

The idea that all politically conservative Christians care about is abortion and same-sex marriage is an embarrassingly misguided one, and yet very widespread (I believe this goes back to the left's unwillingness to understand people on the right or take them at their word).  Dionne is honestly unaware that people could possibly think that the issues of justice (including economic) and social good are all better addressed by conservative positions than liberal ones.  Have they ever even heard of the Acton Institute?  No, for Dionne and many of the religious left, the only possibility is that conservative leaders have deviously trapped gullible religious people in a "narrow electoral agenda."

 

One has to make a deep, unexamined assumption to end up with this inexcusable blindness.  The assumption is:  liberal policies are obviously moral and conservative policies are obviously immoral.  Therefore, they conclude, if any religious person thought about anything other than abortion and same-sex marriage, then naturally, he would be on the left instead of the right.  Therefore, widening his scope of issues would keep him from voting for conservative candidates and thereby becoming a "prop" of the right.  (How it could be that taking on and promoting uniquely leftist policies would not simply cause these newly leftist Christians to become "props" of leaders on the left is never actually explained.)

 

It's amazing--and a little scary--how rarely people on the religious left examine themselves and their rhetoric and how little they understand conservatives.  This doesn't bode well for robust and productive debate anytime in the near future.

In today’s tense political climate, many analysts have speculated that Reagan conservatism is dying out. Among other things, they point to the popularity of big government Republicans who may seek to lower taxes, but overcompensate through increasing government programs and spending. To Reagan conservatives, the future looks bleak. But in Reagan’s Children: Taking Back the City on the Hill, Hans Zeiger looks to the rise of conservative values among young Americans today.

Zeiger has essentially one point throughout the book: there is a resurgence of conservatism and faith among the youth of America today and this should be a great cause of optimism. To make his case, he provides countless statistics, case studies, and anecdotes. He explores the reasons why it’s occurring, the historical significance and importance, and how conservative Christians can further strengthen their cause.

Perhaps the greatest value of Reagan’s Children is Zeiger’s relentless optimism. It’s refreshing, and almost shocking, considering the typical doom and gloom rhetoric often put forward by conservative commentators worried about the future of America.

However great this optimism is, though, it is rooted in the book’s greatest problem: Zeiger contends that God is calling this generation to change the world and that when Christians take charge of this calling America will continue to be (or return to being) “that shining city on a hill.” The problem is that the primary mode for making a difference is through political action. What’s missing in the calling of Reagan’s Children is the role of the church. It is the church’s responsibility to change the world, not a secular government. In this, Zeiger perpetuates a serious problem common to the Religious Right: confusing the role of the government and the role of the church. While America may well be the “greatest nation on God’s green earth,” it is not so because America is God’s chosen country. America is not God’s country, but the church is His, and it is through the global community of believers that God will bless the nations.

Take a stand for the Truth! Tell Hilary there is nothing wrong with home made cookies: http://swiftkidsfortruth.org/

FoxNews posted 21 questions and answers about Mormonism today. The answers were provided by "The Church." Unfortunately, the answers are at best deceptive and this worked out to be a great piece of propaganda for them. Rob Bowman provides some clarity on the article.

Melinda at Stand to Reason posted a blurb about Craig Hazen's forthcoming book Five Sacred Crossings. This book has been awhile in the making and it's great to finally see it coming out.

Dustin Steeve dissects Mike Huckabee's problematic foreign policy.

The Black Knight always triumphs! Or in this case, the new trailer for The Dark Knight triumphs. Since there will apparently be no 24 season 7, The Dark Knight and Prince Caspian are about all I have to look forward too...

Curt Schilling weighed in on the Mitchell Report before it went public. It was a sad day, but a necessary day for baseball. It may be the case that some of the names mentioned are not guilty as charged, but most of them probably are (including my childhood hero, Roger Clemens). I don't think most players use HGH or steroids, which is why the players association needs to shake hands with Selig and put an end to this mess. Yea, Mitchell and Selig should have played nicer with the MLBPA, but they still need to represent the players who are disadvantaged because they play the game with integrity.

I'm at the Family Research Council's Washington Briefing: Values Voter Summit today and tomorrow.  Melinda (my boss) was invited to blog on the conference and was nice enough to bring me with her.  All of the Republican candidates for president will be speaking among other guests (including Jim Wallis), so it should be interesting.  (Unfortunately, all of the Democratic candidates declined to speak.)  You can read our posts on the experience over on the Stand to Reason Blog.

This is pathetic.  From Daily Kos:  Why I Have A Little Crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

I know I'm a Jewish lesbian and he'd probably have me killed.  But still, the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon...  Okay, I admit it.  Part of it is that he just looks cuddly.  Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight.  I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog.  Sort of.  With smaller eyes.  But that's not all...

 

I want to be very clear.  There are certainly many things about Ahmadinejad that I abhor -- locking up dissidents, executing of gay folks, denying the fact of the Holocaust, potentially adding another dangerous nuclear power to the world and, in general, stifling democracy.  Even still, I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding....

This is very interesting.  Whatever reasons or explanations President Bush gives for his actions the left dismisses as false, as they look for the true, deeper motives.  Yet here, the rhetoric is all-important and accepted as genuine.  Never mind that Ahmadinejad actually kills gay people, listen to what he says.  But President Bush?  Everything he says is merely propaganda.

Ahmadinejad, it would appear, cares more about American troops than President Bush....

And now, all of a sudden, you have no ability to see past appearances?

Perhaps the Bush Administration's campaign against Ahmadinejad --- just like its campaign against Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and others --- isn't as much about whether he's a danger to the world.... I'm not saying he's a good guy at all.  I'm only saying it's hard to know the full story when the Bush Administration seems so invested in smearing Ahmadinejad....

People can be so invested in smearing their foe that we can't trust what they see and say?  I can't imagine how that could happen.  Pot, meet kettle.  And while you're at it, meet Ahmadinejad.

In the quotes she gives from her beloved Ahmadinejad, I particularly like how he says he'll be judged positively compared to Bush by the following criterion:

Did we bring the world peace and security or raised [sic] the specter of intimidation and threats?

This she finds compelling coming from the man who has repeatedly insisted Israel should be "wiped off the map."  Unbelievable.

I hear a pretty constant stream of a specific kind of personal attack by leftists against conservatives, including to my face.  And honestly, I'm sick of it.  The basic idea they're convinced of is that deep down, we have secret, selfish motives for everything, and/or that we're downright evil.  You can see how this leads to fine, rational conversations about policy with us. 

 

Here's an excerpt from the latest example of the vile, civilized-political-discourse-destroying, irrational assumption that conservatives (and in this particular case, the President) have only evil motives (even if good leftists can't always uncover them) spewed by Peter Mehlman on the Huffington Post.  (If they take it down, you'll be able to find the whole thing here.)  And frankly, this isn't an unusual opinion, in my experience:

 

So now we're six and a half years into Bush and everyone from Helen Thomas on down is declaring him the worst president ever. What no one is saying is the one overarching reason he's the worst: the Bush administration is the first that doesn't even mean well.

 

With the possible exception of immigration reform -- and who knows what grotesque financial incentive underlies that -- try to pinpoint even one policy motivated by the desire to lessen human suffering, to improve the life of citizens. Nothing. There is nothing....

 

It's been the ultimate frustration to consider the people who don't see Bush's malevolence....You could argue that even the world's worst fascist dictators at least meant well. They honestly thought were doing good things for their countries by suppressing blacks/eliminating Jews/eradicating free enterprise/repressing individual thought/killing off rivals/invading neighbors, etc. Only the Saudi royal family is driven by the same motives as Bush, but they were already entrenched. Bush set a new precedent. He came into office with the attitude of "I'm so tired of the public good. What about my good? What about my rich friends' good?"

 

How can anyone not see it? It's not that their policies have been misguided or haven't played out right. They. Don't. Even. Mean. Well.

 

There you go, folks.  I'm so disgusted by this that I have no commentary--at least, none without expletives, and this is a family show.

 

If you're interested in reading a more level-headed response to this phenomenon that I wrote back when I still naively believed I could reason with leftists about conservative ideas--before I had banged my head against the wall of "secret evil motives" so often that I lost the motivation to interact, read this. 

In Genesis 9:6, God commands, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man."  Because he bears the image of God, the value of a man is so great that there is only one punishment worthy of the unjust taking of his life.  The ultimate crime against the innocent demands the ultimate penalty for the guilty.  This is not only just, it's also a way to protect the innocent.  According to the article "Studies say death penalty deters crime," anywhere between 3 and 18 (depending on the study) lives are saved when a murderer is executed.

"Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it," said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. "The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect."

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. "The results are robust, they don't really go away," he said. "I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) -- what am I going to do, hide them?"

 

Another professor responded:

"Abolitionists or others, like me, who are skeptical about the death penalty haven't given adequate consideration to the possibility that innocent life is saved by the death penalty."

 

If the findings are correct, they pose a real dilemma for those who oppose the death penalty:  Is it right to keep a murderer alive if it means as many as 18 innocent people will die? 

From Nancy Pelosi's speech on Thursday in favor of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007:

 

Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure and that is the embryonic stem cell research....  Yet, with his cruel veto pen, President Bush dashed the hopes of many for the healing potential of stem cell research.

 

First, though she says ESCR is "biblical in its power to cure," embryonic stem cell research has produced no usable results. 

 

Second, has she ever heard of private funding?  Has the president locked all the scientists in a dungeon?  No.  President Bush, with his "cruel pen," protected my will that I not fund ESCR.  Meanwhile, not only did he fund other types of stem cell research, but anyone is free to invest in ESCR if he wishes. 

 

Third, if anyone is thinking, "Well there aren't enough interested investors out there, so the government has to fund it," then I say, all the more reason for the government not to waste our money.  If there were any certainty about this supposedly huge potential in embryonic stem cell research, you can bet that all sorts of individuals and corporations would be clambering over each other to invest.  The fact is, other areas of stem cell research are far more promising in practice (rather than theory), with already-achieved results.

 

So why push so hard for this when breakthroughs like this one are already happening that involve no ethical concerns whatsoever?  Why this obsession with destroying embryos?  Why shouldn't we, as a nation, fund the stem cell research that everyone can endorse and leave the funding of ESCR to those who aren't opposed to it and who actually see within it some tangible promise?

 

She then says, "If we have a scientific opportunity to treat and cure disease, we have a moral responsibility to support it."

 

The principle she espouses here is ridiculous.  We have a moral responsibility to support whatever gives us scientific knowledge that might help people?  The Tuskegee Study, conducted from 1932 to 1972 was very helpful in teaching scientists about Syphilis and its effects.  Never mind that African-American men were denied available treatment so that the study could continue.  It's our moral responsibility to support it, right? 

 

That example shows how flawed her principle is.  There are loads of things you could do to gain more scientific knowledge for cures, but there is clearly only a moral responsibility to pursue scientific knowledge to help others if the pursuit itself does not cause moral harm.  And if it does cause moral harm, we have the responsibility to not pursue it.

 

Therefore the debate over the moral harm of ESCR must be at least addressed before one can claim we have a moral responsibility to pursue it.  Pelosi can't just dismiss without explanation or defense the idea that ESCR causes moral harm and skip to the cure part.

 

Thank God for that cruel veto pen.

From SPIEGEL Online International:

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

SPIEGEL:

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa...

Shikwati: ... for God's sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

To continue reading the interview, go here.

There's something to that old proverb: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." When it comes to fighting poverty simply throwing money at the situation can do more harm than good. We see this in Africa with generic "aid" and the loads of money being spent on "AIDS." Instead of creating a higher standard of living, these programs are creating a society split between a corrupt upper class and a deeply impoverished and dependent lower class.

Here in America, we're on the same track with welfare and food stamps. These programs were intended to be temporarily help people get back on their feet. But today they are abused by people who think they have a right to receive support for doing nothing. And our government is more than willing to offer that support, even increase it.

Recently 4 lawmakers took a "Food Stamp Challenge." They were to live for a week off the $21 the government gives to those who participate in the food stamp program. Not surprisingly, that budget afforded only a little unhealthy food. So what should be done about this problem? According to Rep. Jan Schakowsky, we need to increase the amount of money each family receives. Watch her recent interview on the Colbert Report.

The answer should be to help people get off of food stamps and support themselves. If anything, the government should be in the business of empowering people to be independent and self-sufficient. People who spend their lives depending on what's given to them have no opportunity to better their lives. The only way that can happen is if more stuff is given to them (usually at the expense of people who actually earned what they have). Individuals who work for their livings develop opportunities to better their lives, not to mention virtuous qualities such as discipline and respect.

Most of the aid and welfare systems in place are actually systems of oppression, systems that relegate people to lives of poverty. If we truly want to help the poor, "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!" Instead, teach them to fish.

I guess they got the idea for this from the Jews' evil plan to use Tom and Jerry...

 

But don't be worried.  It turns out that, as Christians, we'll be much better off under Islamic rule...