Mother Jones Magazine

In the 1970s, an underground magazine took the name “Mother Jones.” Over the years, the magazine became more prominent and was no longer underground. For a period in the 1980s, Michael Moore (now known for his films) was affiliated with the magazine.

The magazine touts itself as a beacon of investigative journalism, a type of journalism I think we need more of these days. There is some investigative work in the magazine, but some of it is not very thorough. Much of it is heavily tinged with ideology, which makes the articles less than ideal in my opinion.

Nonetheless, I appreciate Mother Jones magazine. I may not always agree with its ideology or perspective. But despite what the right says, there aren’t really a lot of left wing voices in the media. With the rise of Fox News Channel and talk radio, I think that countervailing voices are important.

Unlike talk radio and FNC, which make lots of money, Mother Jones magazine is produced by a non-profit, the Foundation for American Progress. The magazine accepts donations to support its existence.

http://motherjones.com/

Deuteronomy 24:19

When you harvest your grain and forget a sheaf back in the field, don't go back and get it; leave it for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that God, your God, will bless you in all your work. When you shake the olives off your trees, don't go back over the branches and strip them bare—what's left is for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. And when you cut the grapes in your vineyard, don't take every last grape—leave a few for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. Don't ever forget that you were a slave in Egypt. I command you: Do what I'm telling you.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Life Lessons About Power)

At the end of the day, this film taught me more about what people thought about Lee Atwater than what Mr. Atwater actually believed or experienced. I’m still not sure what his core values or beliefs (if any) were. But maybe that doesn’t matter. I still came away from the film with several lessons that may or may not have been particularly applicable to Mr. Atwater’s personal experience, but are nonetheless important truths for any of us.

First, I was struck by the futility of seeking power. Mr. Atwater lived his life in a profession focused on seeking to amass power. I’ve never found that appealing. As I’ve already mentioned in a prior blog post, I discerned early on that I’d not be a good fit for politics. I do not make a living by getting others elected and I have never run for any public office. Indeed most of us don’t do those things. But that doesn’t mean that we are immune from the thirst for power that allegedly consumed Mr. Atwater and tempted him to do unscrupulous things. We should not sit on our high horses and look down our nose at his choices.

Mr. Atwater’s quest for power was on a huge scale most of us cannot even fully image. But the rest of us face similar temptations on much more modest scales. Maybe it involves the possibility of stabbing a co-worker in the back to curry favor of a boss or management. Maybe it involves trying to get on a particular committee of a church or HOA to make important decisions for the community. Maybe it involves an intra-family power struggle to be the one to make decisions for the family or for a loved one. Just because we are not strolling the corridors of power in the capital of the free world does not mean that we are immune from the seductive attraction of power.

As humans, we want to be in control. It seems innate. We want to control our children’s decisions, our career trajectory, the remote control, and what we have for dinner. But the truth is, we have limited control over most things. We may work hard as parents and employees. But at the end of the day our kids will have opportunities to make decisions when we won’t be around to have any direct influence. And bosses and clients will have a lot of influence over our career and they are going to be guided by some factors beyond our control. We cannot control the weather, how long we’ll be in traffic on Monday or even the people with whom we will work. It is part of the human condition that we need to learn to accept that we have limited control in many important parts of our lives. Ultimately, God is in control and we have to learn to trust his plan.

And as Christians, we are called to love God and our brothers and sisters. As many theologians have noted, love and power are not equivalent. Indeed, one might assert they are mutually exclusive concepts. Choosing to love means a loss of control and a loss of power. Those who love are particularly vulnerable. That comes with the territory.

Watching this documentary about Lee Atwater was a good reminder to me about the futility of seeking power. That is a reminder we all need, even if we live far from the Beltway and are not involved in politics.

1 John 2:15

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.


1 John 4:16

We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Struggle with Cancer and Deathbed Conversion)

The final part of this film of course deals with Lee Atwater’s struggles with brain cancer beginning in 1990.

Tucker Askew describes Atwater as being consumed with fear during this period. Askew also noted that fear had been a staple of tool chest in politics. Ironically, when the gravity of his illness became apparent, Atwater had an attitude of sheer terror with respect to the imminence of the after-life.

In an interview in the film, Ed Rollins indicates that as Atwater’s health deteriorated, he and Atwater reconciled. Atwater asked for his help and indicated Rollins was the only person he could trust as others were trying to get him out of the RNC.

It was also noted that during this period of his life Atwater went on a frantic search for spiritual meaning, and had clergy of many faiths waiting in the halls to meet with him in the hospital. One friend indicated that Atwater told all of the clergy he was on board with their beliefs in the thought that if one of them were right, he’d be ok.

Another friend indicated Atwater told him he had never read the bible until his illness. He indicated he was consumed with the verse from the New Testament: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

Despite the “boogeyman” person he cultivated, Ed Rollins expressed in the film the belief that Atwater was not evil, he was just insecure. His whole life was spent trying to gain power and prestige, and when he achieved it, Rollins believed he was terrified of losing it.

Mary Matalin expressed disgust with the misrepresentation of Atwater’s death bed conversion stories. I found this to be a fascinating attitude, but unfortunately it was not explored sufficiently in the film and I am not sure what exactly provoked her disgust.

The final scene in the film involves footage from the interview with Ed Rollins who explained that Atwater had indicated that a Living Bible was what was giving him faith in his final days. Rollins states that he said to Mary Matalin after Atwater’s death, "I really, sincerely hope that he found peace.” In the film, Rollins states, that Matalin responded, “Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package.” Rollins add that that fact “just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end."

That was certainly a fascinating way to end the film. However, I was left with certain questions.

Earlier in the film, Rollins had indicated that he himself was a former altar boy, but politics was not a field that typically recruited altar boys. Rollins also described with an incredible tirade of profanity his reaction to Atwater’s betrayal of him and the threats he made against Atwater at the time. Thus, it was evident in the film that Rollins had an extremely negative view towards Atwater and still held a lot of anger for him. Nonetheless, he later professed in the film that his anger for Atwater melted away when he saw how sick he was. The bottom line of all this is it is unclear to me whether one should even believe Rollins’ story about the cellophane.

Maybe Matalin made the statement, maybe she didn’t. Again, it is not clear in the film what provoked Ms. Matalin’s disgust at the deathbed conversion stories. Maybe it was because she had found a bible in Mr. Atwater’s office and it was in the cellophane. Perhaps Ms. Matalin’s disgust was prompted by her belief that Mr. Atwater’s deathbed conversion was insincere. But perhaps something else provoked her disgust. The reaction inside the Beltway towards Mr. Atwater’s tragic illness and death were enough to provoke disgust in plenty of people.

Indeed, that cellophane statement just seems odd to me. I myself own more bibles than I can count. Some were gifts, and others I bought myself at various times in my life. I’m not sure any of my bibles ever came wrapped in cellophane.

Even if Matalin did make the statement and even if it were true, it is not clear that it has the significance that Rollins suggests, i.e., that Atwater’s conversion was insincere. Like me, perhaps Atwater owned multiple copies of the bible and the one in the cellophane was one that he didn’t make use of. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t reading another copy (or copies) regularly. Many people don’t do the bulk of their bible study at work. And it seems unlikely that Mr. Atwater would have been at his office much in the latter days of his life anyhow.

Although I own a lot of bibles, I have a few that I read more than others. I have one at my office at work that I have consulted most over the years for a variety of reasons. It is pocket size and has a bookmark ribbon that I find helpful. I have another bible with a different, more modern translation that I keep on my nightstand to read before I go to sleep. A third is one that I tend to use when I take a bible to church or when I go to our church’s small group meetings. Many years ago I tabbed the books in that particular bible, so I can find particular passages very quickly. A few other bibles of mine get read occasionally, but others are frankly rarely (if ever) opened. Though none of my bibles are wrapped in cellophane, if you judged my devotion to the bible based on the frequency these latter bibles are opened, the judgment would be skewed.

In the end, it is not for any of us human beings to judge the sincerity of Atwater’s death bed convergence, the sincerity of his statements of religious devotion he made to friends, or the frequency of his bible study. It does not really matter to me. That is not my place.

I disagreed with many things Mr. Atwater did in his earthly life, but I hope and believe he is at peace in the afterlife. As a Christian, I view God as merciful even when we are undeserving—and we all fit that description. Jesus taught us that God is not a vengeful god, he is the joyful father of the prodigal son.

To me, the ultimate take away from this film was that those who generally work in politics do not have the kind of values or ethics that I would aspire to embrace. I cannot ever see myself working in a political capacity. I cannot imagine ever deciding to run for public office or working in more than a casual manner (e.g., stuffing envelopes) for a politician.

These are not conclusions I have come to simply by virtue of watching this particular film. Experiences I had growing up in DC also underpin that decision. That does not mean that I am apathetic about politics or I’m disengaged. I think civic engagement is important. But I don’t have any illusions about politicians and those who get them elected. Even when I agree with the positions they take, I am not always convinced of their sincerity and I frankly doubt their integrity. Perhaps that is a horribly cynical view, but that seems to be a basic truth of the political process. I’m disappointed in the electorate that we’ve allowed that to be the case.

Acts 26:8
Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

Romans 14:9
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Manipulation of Journalists, Appeals to Superficial Patriotism & the Use of Fear)

Multiple times in the film, interviewees explain that Mr. Atwater argued that perception is reality, and thus in politics one could create one’s own reality. That is a frightening assertion, but it unfortunately makes sense in the context of Mr. Atwater’s career.

Numerous members of the media are interviewed, and they frankly come off as rather lame. They explain how Mr. Atwater was charming on a personal level and befriended journalists. This made them vulnerable to manipulation as they unwittingly helped to spread innuendo and falsehoods as news stories.

For example, the film includes footage of Lee Atwater calmly telling an incredulous reporter repeatedly that he had no ad featuring Willie Horton. A friend of Mr. Atwater’s then recounts an occasion when Mr. Atwater showed him a tape of the notorious Willie Horton ad, and the friend urged him (unsuccessfully) to not use it.

It is also noted that due to the tremendous press attention it received, the infamous Willie Horton ad received more attention than it would have simply for the number of times it ran as a political commercial.

There are also interviews describing how the media knew that Republican leaders were lying about Iran-Contra, but the media not being willing to confront them publicly about it. The film describes the Washington press corps as being cynical and their reporting as being shallow.

In the film, the late Robert Novak stated at one point that Republican politicians just want to win elections; they are not ideologically committed. By contrast, he said Democratic politicians tend to have sincere beliefs about the causes they support. Novak, a conservative, laughed and added disparagingly that he thought Democrats’ beliefs—although sincere--were misguided. I found Novak’s perspective intriguing. His explanation is one that I’ve frankly often suspected as I’ve followed politics over the years, and I have even heard other progressives voice that same suspicion. But heretofore, I had never heard a conservative voice that perspective.

Tucker Eskew also made an interesting comment in the film. He talked at one point about people voting against their own interest because patriotism was stronger. That comment was made in the context of the issues the film notes dominated the 1988 presidential election: flag burning, mandating the pledge of allegiance in the schools, and perceived threats to gun ownership rights.

Eric Alterman also made several interesting comments. In the same context as Mr. Eskew’s statement, Mr. Alterman stated that people vote their fears, not their hopes. His point was that Lee Atwater recognized that reality and masterfully exploited it. Indeed, the film noted that in the 1988, polls indicated that voters were turned off by the negative campaign tactics. Nonetheless, the tactics worked for those who initiated them in the Bush campaign. They turned some voters against Dukakis. Further, they discouraging other would-be voters from going to the polls; voter turnout was low in 1988 and low turnout favored Republicans.

Mr. Alterman also described the Republican Party as a “stealth party.” He noted that the GOP deliberately tried to appeal to the common man in elections, yet in power deliberately provided all the benefits of power to a smaller group of the electorate: the wealthy. He also noted that the GOP advocated high levels of morality, but exhibited other behaviors in private.

Mr. Alterman did not elaborate what he meant in the film, but I think it is fairly obvious. At least since the 1980 election, the party has pandered to cultural insecurities and resentments of white folk at middle and lower socio-economic levels. In the last presidential election, this approach was focused on “Joe the Plumber” (or “Joe Sixpack” as he was sometimes called). But folks like Joe get ignored when the GOP gets into power. They are supposed to wait for “trickle down” economic benefits that never seem to trickle down. Moreover, when it comes to social issues, such voters are supposed to be patient (and frankly just shut up) when their supposed political allies never come through on their campaign promises to outlaw abortion or adopt a constitutional amendment forbidding same sex marriage.

Indeed, the GOP touts “family values” and embraces religion publicly, and such campaign tactics are directly responsible for many of the votes they receive in elections. However, despite Christ’s own teaching against divorce, many of the GOP’s most prominent leaders and allies have been divorced (some multiple times): Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, Rush Limbaugh, Phil Gramm, Mary Matalin, Bob Dole, Dick Armey, Pete Wilson, John Warner, John McCain, Ed Rollins, and George Will, among others.

Similarly, some conservatives currently accuse President Obama of not being a Christian and chiding him for not going to church regularly. It is interesting that such folks didn’t have a problem with President Reagan’s absence from the pews. But then again, I’m not sure he technically ever publicly professed to be a Christian in his political life. Perhaps it would have conflicted with Mrs. Reagan’s devotion to astrology.

Exodus 18:21

But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Bigotry, Deceit & Hypocrisy)

Early in the film, some time is devoted to Mr. Atwater’s early days in Southern politics. There is mention of exploitative, divisive “push polls” that suggested slanderous things about opposing candidates or invoked bigotry. In that vein, there are claims that Atwater exploited anti-Semitism in the Bible Belt to win an early election. It is also asserted that Atwater had said that in a prior era Southern politics required extensive use of the n-word to win, but that day was past and one had to be more subtle. In that context, it is asserted that Reagan’s use of the term “welfare queen” became code for the n-word.

In a similar vein, it was also observed in the film that in 1980 Ronald Reagan began his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It was a small town off the beaten path, but was known internationally as the site of one of the most egregious, racially charged crimes. Three civil rights workers were killed there in 1964. Reagan famously used the term “states rights” in his speech in Philadelphia. The film asserts this campaign ploy was pandering to the basest instincts in the electorate.

The film portrays Atwater as a workaholic striving for power and recognition. Interviewees stated he had an amazing work ethic, working 7 days per week. People who worked closely with him when he first came to D.C. said they were shocked to hear eventually that he had a wife and child. Interviewees also described Atwater as devious, manipulative, and insecure. They expressed the belief that he was trying to prove himself; he was cynical about politics and not idealistic.

Along those lines, Ed Rollins described his betrayal in 1984 at the hands of Atwater. Mr. Rollins expressed in the film that he had been warned by those around him to not trust Atwater, but he did not heed that advice. Mr. Rollins did decide to trust Atwater, but he indicates he came to regret that decision bitterly. Rollins described Atwater as cold-blooded. He also noted that Atwater’s younger brother had died when they were little children in a tragic, grotesque kitchen accident. It was asserted that early childhood experience warped Atwater, proving to him that God was unmerciful.

The film described that the Bush family treated Atwater dismissively and viewed him as the “hired help.” Barbara Bush allegedly disliked Mr. Atwater’s vulgarity. George W. Bush was apparently assigned by the family to keep an eye on Atwater. The film asserts that George W. Bush ultimately became a fan and admirer of Atwater, learning much about politics from him.

There were a number of interviewee comments about the 1988 election that were interesting. One charged that Ronald Reagan desperately needed to prevent the Democrats from taking over the White House to make sure he did not face investigations and possible prosecution for the Iran-Contra Affair. The plan was to keep Dukakis constantly on the defensive; in such a context, even if you did nothing wrong, you seem guilty if you always have to defend yourself.

One of the things I myself remember about the 1988 campaign and found most insulting at the time was the obvious manipulation of image, which the film attributed to Atwater’s genius. Dukakis was the son of immigrants who had had to work hard for all he had achieved. Nonetheless, Dukakis was successfully portrayed as an elitist by the Bush campaign. By contrast, George H.W. Bush (who was a prep school grad, the son of a respected politician and well-entrenched in the aristocratic Yankee elite) was paraded around in fancy polished cowboy boots eating pork rinds.

As a native Texan whose family has been in the state for many generations, I had found that parody to be deeply insulting at the time. Even worse, I was disappointed that we Texans allowed this quintessential blueblood Yankee New Englander to briefly put on the most stereotypical of Texas costumes to pretend to be something he clearly was not. If you were born in Massachusetts, you were educated in elite private schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut, your home is actually in a place like Kennebunkport, you only came to the Lone Star State as an adult to exploit its oil resources, and your speech does not naturally include the word “y’all,” you are not a real Texan in my book. Nonetheless, the Bush family continues to be quite popular in Texas—much to my dismay and disgust.

The film interviews Mike and Kitty Dukakis. Sadly, Mr. Dukakis seems to still be kicking himself for the decision to stick to the moral high ground and not respond to the baseless negative campaign ads ran against him in 1988. In the interview with Dukakis, the film noted that the Massachusetts prison furlough program, with which the GOP pummeled him in the campaign, was actually initiated by other political leaders such as Governor Ronald Reagan of California.

Psalm 26:4 (New International Version)
I do not sit with deceitful men, nor do I consort with hypocrites.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Overview: The South and “Liberal Elites”)

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story was a fascinating documentary and quite different from what I was anticipating. I thought the film would be a straight-forward description of Mr. Atwater’s embrace of dirty tricks to win campaigns and his deathbed terror at the prospect of having to account in the afterlife for such misdeeds. That was certainly part of the documentary, but the film actually told a much more complex story.

A number of folks from varied backgrounds were interviewed in the film to tell Mr. Atwater’s story—admirers and detractors, Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites. The film interviewed politicians, political operatives, journalists, as well as non-political, unsophisticated average Joes who knew Mr. Atwater in his home state of South Carolina. The famous people interviewed included Robert Novak, Ed Rollins, Mary Matalin, Tucker Eskew, Mike & Kitty Dukakis, Eric Alterman, and Sam Donaldson, among many others.

There were a number of points in the film that I found fascinating. I’ll explore those points in several different blog posts. The first I’ll address is Mr. Atwater’s intimate understanding of Southerners and his exploitation of that knowledge for political purposes.

Many of the interviewees early in the film focused on the significance of Mr. Atwater’s Southern roots. The interviewees made insightful comments about the role of the South in modern politics. They noted that the South was the only part of the United States that had ever been defeated and humiliated in war, and that experience fostered a backlash and resentment against so called “liberal elites.”

The interviewees mentioned the long-held perception that liberal elites think they are very smart and are generally better than Southerners (who are viewed by the liberal elites as being stupid). One white Southern interviewee asserted that liberal elites are biased against white Southerners in the same way that liberal elites accuse white Southerners of being biased against blacks. The film suggested this lingering resentment against liberal elites was well-understood by Mr. Atwater; he exploited it to his candidates’ advantage.

I think this is an important point of which “liberal elites” should take note. I never supported any of Mr. Atwater’s candidates, but this point about “liberal elites” even rang true with me. Throughout my life, I’ve spent a fair amount of time with folks from the Northeast, and have experienced such attitudes first and second hand. Though the title character in Forrest Gump had an intellectual disability, it has often been my impression that many people raised and/or educated in the Northeast believe the character Tom Hanks created is typical of all white Southerners. A while back I read an interview with Stephen Colbert (another native South Carolinian) who pointed out that when he was growing up popular culture always portrayed Southerners as dummies. This prompted Mr. Colbert at an early age to consciously neutralize his own speech to avoid being lumped in with such stereotypes due to his accent. Of course, it is hard for even the most enlightened of human beings to not find such stereotypical portrayals (and the underlying attitudes they betray) to be offensive and downright annoying.

What is even more irksome to many of us, however, is the more subtle attitude that white Southerners are all racists. I am very much aware of the extreme levels of violence that have been directed against African Americans in the South for several centuries. And despite the formal dismantling of Jim Crow several decades ago, I would never assert that racism is ancient history and no longer a problem in the South. I know there has been huge progress, but deep problems certainly still exist. Nonetheless, in my experience, there is currently as much racism in other parts of the country. This is true though folks in other parts of the country often get self-righteous--acting like the South is uniquely racist but places like Newark, Boston and Philadelphia are harmonious examples of racial tolerance.

I try to be open to and tolerant of all of God’s children, but I must confess one demographic that is particularly difficult for me to stomach is white, politically liberal Yankees with an educational pedigree. I struggle against prejudging people in that demographic; at times it is a real challenge. We may vote the same in most general elections, but such people typically have little else in common with me.
And to the extent that such people dominate or appear to dominate the Democratic Party and major media outlets, such an attitude is a real problem. If such institutions are at times even alienating Southern folks like me, they need to recognize that as a very serious problem and address it.

Proverbs 16:18

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story (2008) (Preconceptions Before Watching the Film)

In prior posts this year, I focused on the tragic lack of civility in public discourse in the modern era. Some people cite Lee Atwater as a chief cause of the polarization, the vilification of political opponents and the general breakdown in civility that we currently see in public life. Personally, I am not sure what the chief causes have been; I haven’t studied the subject enough to know what got us to this point. But I recently came across an interesting documentary about Mr. Atwater. Before I blog about the documentary itself, I think it is helpful to mention the attitudes and impressions I had about Mr. Atwater when I initially watched the film. One’s preconceptions impact how one reacts to new information.

I came of age as an adult in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Growing up in the DC area, I was attuned to politics for as long as I can recall. As a teenager, I volunteered on various political campaigns. It was so incredibly exciting when in 1987 I was finally eligible to register to vote. For the first time, I myself was able to vote for a particular candidate, not just encourage others to do so. It was thrilling and empowering.

Early on in the primary season for the 1988 presidential election, I backed Mike Dukakis. He was a little known, nerdy and frugal governor from a Yankee state. Despite being a Northerner, I thought he was great. He struck me as pragmatic, intelligent and committed. He really seemed to want to make our country better and help as many of us as possible live the American dream. Moreover, he seemed to have the attitude and skills necessary to get the job done. It was thrilling when my candidate actually did well in the primaries and secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. When he accepted the party’s nomination at the convention, he seemed well situated to beat George H.W. Bush, who seemed whiney and hopelessly out of touch.

Somehow it all unraveled in the fall of 1988. Our economy was going down the toilet and my fellow college students were pessimistic about our futures. The phrase “McJob” had been coined, and we half-joked we would be flipping burgers after we received our diplomas. Nonetheless, the presidential election somehow focused almost exclusively on red herring issues like flag burning and prison furloughs. I was incredulous, bitterly disappointed and deeply dismayed. When Dukakis lost the election, I shed a lot of tears not just because my candidate lost. That had happened before. It was not fun, but that was nothing new. But in 1988 my tears flowed because of how Dukakis was beaten. Negative campaigning had worked, and enough of the electorate was distracted with red herrings to vote against their own interests and against rationale policies.

The presidential election of 1988 was the first in which I was able to vote and the way that particular election was won ended up having a deep impact on me whether or not I really recognized it at the time. I suppose in retrospect I lost my political innocence and hopefulness just as I was taking my place in the electorate. Although it did not dissuade me from taking part in elections and voting, the 1988 presidential election taught me in a very real way that good guys don’t always win in politics, voters can be manipulated, and to win elections candidates must sometimes play dirty. Prior to that election, having grown up in DC, I think I had always had a vague thought that I might make a career out of politics. The lessons of the 1988 presidential election taught me that I ought to find a different path. I didn’t have the temperament needed to win elections.

By the time George H.W. Bush was inaugurated, the name Lee Atwater was not unfamiliar to me, but I didn’t know a whole lot about him. I knew he was a white Southerner who loved blues music, and he was credited as having turned the election around for George H.W. Bush. I remember him playing blues guitar at the inauguration gala. That was about all I knew at the time.

Several years after the 1988 election, I was taking classes to prepare for my baptism in the Catholic church. Just before my baptism at Easter in 1991, I attended a retreat in Austin, Texas led by a very sweet older priest. He was a white man from some Yankee state; his accent made me think of Brooklyn. But what the heck did I know, he could have been from Boston or Philadelphia. I don’t remember exactly what he was talking about, but the priest made a brief mention of Lee Atwater having converted to Catholicism right before his untimely death. This was a surprise to me, I had not heard about this in the secular news media and it got my attention at the retreat. The priest’s mention of this fact was very casual, he seemed to not find the (deathbed) conversion remarkable or suspicious. I forget the precise context of the priest’s reference to Atwater’s conversion, but he seemed to accept the conversion as earnest and fairly typical. By contrast, I was not so sure.

When Mr. Atwater had died, the secular media had mentioned his legacy as consisting of the infamous Willie Horton ads and being the king of dirty politics. Many of us felt unease that someone who’d apparently lived such an unscrupulous life was going to meet his maker and judgment was imminent. Unlike the priest at that retreat, my intuitive interpretation of Mr. Atwater’s conversion was that he was trying to avoid judgment by embracing a religion that offered forgiveness freely. As a result of this interpretation, I remember feeling very bad for Mr. Atwater.

That mention at my pre-baptism retreat was the only reference to Mr. Atwater’s
conversion I ever remember. I don’t remember hearing much else about his death until I recently watched the documentary Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. It was a fascinating film, but not in the way I had anticipated.

Exodus 20:16

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Exodus 14:31

And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Obstructionist Politics and the Filibuster

The United States Senate website defines “filibuster” as:

Informal term for any attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter by debating it at length, by offering numerous procedural motions, or by any other delaying or obstructive actions.

See http://www.senate.gov/reference/glossary_term/filibuster.htm.

Currently, sixty of the one hundred members of the Senate must vote to end a filibuster. The filibuster procedure has traditionally been viewed as a way to protect the minority party in the Senate. It preserves some of the minority’s influence so that the majority party does not have free reign to do whatever they want with unfettered discretion. The filibuster is essentially a check against majority domination.

In recent years, the filibuster has been at the heart of nasty political squabbles and its future has come into question. A few years ago, the then-majority Republican Party threatened to end the filibuster procedure. The “nuclear option,” as it was dubbed by then-Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, would have changed the Senate’s procedural rules to allow a simple majority to end a filibuster. In 2005, then-Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee threatened to use the nuclear option due to the inability to confirm some of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.

The Republicans’ threat was prompted because ten of President Bush’s judicial nominees were blocked by the Democrats, who charged those candidates were extremists. The then-minority Democrats in the Senate had allowed over two hundred of President Bush’s judicial nominees to be confirmed. So, in actuality, the nuclear option was threatened over the Democrats’ opposition to a relatively small number of judicial nominees. The links below describe the 2005 controversy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701425.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/filibuster_5-16.html

http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/12/nuclear_option_primer/

Senator Frist even took the issue to the Conservative Christian community and claimed that the filibusters were aimed at people of faith. The links below contain reports on Senator Frist’s campaigning.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4618019

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/jan-june05/judges_4-25.html

The 2005 crisis was resolved with a compromise of sorts by the “Gang of 14”—a group of seven Democratic and seven Republican senators who made a pact to oppose the nuclear option, as well as the filibuster of judicial nominees except in extraordinary circumstances. In essence, the Senate Democrats saved the filibuster in 2005 by promising to not use it. The link below contains a report on the compromise.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4663306

It is probably fortunate for the Republicans that they did not use the nuclear option. Shortly after the threats of the nuclear option, the Republicans became the minority party in the Senate. In the 2006 elections, they lost control of the Senate.

Neither Lott nor Frist are still in the Senate at the present time. Senator Lott resigned from Senate leadership in 2002 after making racially insensitive and ignorant remarks about Strom Thurmond’s platform in his presidential campaign in 1948 as a Dixiecrat. He remained in the Senate until 2007, when he resigned to pursue a career in lobbying. Senator Frist had had a long and successful career as a surgeon before entering politics. He was first elected to the Senate in 1995 and resigned in 2007. He has since continued his medical career by teaching at Vanderbilt University and being involved in various charities with a health care focus.

Since becoming the minority party in the Senate, the Republicans have embraced a new-found admiration for the filibuster procedure. They have used it a record number of times in recent years. In the past two years alone, there have been eighty-nine filibusters.

Although they are not proposing the “nuclear option,” this gridlock has led the current majority-Democrats to consider some more modest reforms of the filibuster procedure to make it more transparent. The report below provides some of the details of the Democrats’ current concerns about the filibuster:

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/03/132631424/Senate-Democrats-Propose-Filibuster-Changes

The wisdom of the filibuster procedure continues to be a controversial device. It is a thorn in the side of the majority party and a cherished tool of the minority. The link below contains a debate from 2005 on the wisdom of the filibuster. The text includes arguments both in favor and against the existence of the filibuster.

http://www.npr.org/takingissue/20050324_takingissue_judicial.html

About a year ago, Professor Gregory Koger was interviewed by Terry Gross on the radio program “Fresh Air” to discuss the filibuster procedure and Professor Koger’s book Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122945445

James 4:4-6 (The Message)

You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that "he's a fiercely jealous lover." And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you'll find. It's common knowledge that "God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble."

Lessons from Dr. King in an Era of Incivility

This weekend at church, as our pastor led us in praying for our congregation, our community and the world, we prayed in thanksgiving for the “life and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King.” That phrase has stuck in my mind.

We often hear Dr. King’s name invoked in secular, political contexts these days. And many gloss over the fact that Dr. King was a Christian pastor and his civil rights work was rooted in biblical teachings. I like using the phrase “ministry” to describe his work. I think it is very apropos. As Christ followers, a basic tenet of our faith is that God created all human beings in his image, and each one of us is infinitely valuable. We also believe we are part of the Body of Christ, and all parts are critically important. There are no second class citizens in the Body of Christ.

As I have been thinking about the gift of Dr. King’s life and ministry, it occurs to me that he provided us a wonderful example to follow in our current climate of uncivil public discourse. Two points from his ministry seem particularly helpful.

First, Dr. King was courageous and fair in flagging injustices. He didn’t just tell his flock to suffer through the indignities and dangers of Jim Crow. Dr. King had vision to decry long-established social norms that brought misery and kept African Americans from fully developing their potential. He encouraged people in the pews to go outside and peacefully demand justice outside the walls of their church.

Second, as Dr. King was flagging injustices, he did not demonize those who opposed his work. Instead, he appealed to our better nature and spoke in terms of brotherhood. Even after his home was bombed and his family was nearly killed, Dr. King preached love, not violent retaliation.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King used the occasion of his incarceration to take time to respond to Christian leaders who had condemned his civil rights work. The text of the letter is available at the following link: http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html.

It is a beautiful, eloquent, wise letter written under challenging circumstances. Had I been in Dr. King’s shoes, I would have been sorely tempted to name-call the critical leaders to whom he was responding. At the very least, I would have wanted to use sharp language to call them hypocrites. The spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak. A more mature Christian than me, Dr. King refrained from such unproductive pettiness. He opens the letter calling the condemning clergy “men of genuine good will” and expresses his aspiration to respond to their criticisms in “patient and reasonable terms.” He clearly succeeded. In the letter, he is firm in pressing for the cause of social justice, but Dr. King’s words are full of respect, humility and love. They are a tremendous example for us all to follow at any time in human history. But they seem to have particular resonance in this current American climate.

One of my favorite parts of the letter is when he responds to charges that his actions have been extremist in nature, Dr. King writes:

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as
I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of
satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist
for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I
bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an
extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God."

Another passage that also speaks to me is the following:

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states.
I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in
Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught
in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford
to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives
inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its
bounds.

May you have a blessed day, gentle reader. May you be enriched by the words of our brother, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hosea 10:12-13

Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the LORD
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice,
You have eaten the fruit of lies
Because you have trusted in your way, in your numerous warriors

Senator Mitch McConnell and the Struggle Against Vilification

I’ve written recently about the breakdown in public discourse and the tendency for people to vilify their political opponents. As a Christian, I believe I’m called to resist that tendency and to look for the good in all my brothers and sisters. That responsibility encourages me to look for areas of commonality with those who embrace different positions on various issues. I must admit that in some contexts living up to that responsibility is a particular challenge.

In our current dysfunctional culture and political system, people get caught up in achieving their own short-term political gain. In the process, they ignore the long-term good of the country and/or the pressing needs of our brothers and sisters. In that context, people forget that politics is simply a means to an end. It should not be an end in itself. How empty and meaningless that would be.

After the recent mid-term elections, Senator Mitch McConnell publicly announced that his party’s chief goal is to make sure President Obama does not win re-election. Like others, I was floored by such a candid admission of a very twisted priority. To heck with achieving any progress on any of the pressing issues facing our nation and its people. Apparently, Senator McConnell simply wants to make sure his party gains control of the White House in 2012. At least he let us know what his priorities are. But I’m stunned that he would think such a priority is publicly acceptable. The following link discusses the senator’s comments and contains media pundit reaction.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/25/mcconnell-obama-one-term/

Senator McConnell later elaborated that one of his party’s specific goals was repeal of the health care law enacted by both houses and signed by President Obama. He suggested that his party would be unrelenting in their pursuit of such repeal.

I just don’t understand that. First of all, Barack Obama made it quite clear in his campaign for the presidency that he wanted to achieve health care reform that would help more Americans get meaningful health insurance coverage. On that platform, he won the presidential election handily—both in terms of the popular vote and the Electoral College. He did not squeak out a win by a razor thin majority or the assistance of the Supreme Court. Candidate Obama never hide his plans for health care reform. For that reason, it literally makes me want to scream when politicians and others whine in a revisionist manner that our president is forcing an unwanted policy on us. The facts make it clear that is not the case. A minority may be unhappy and quite vocal about it. But a majority of us voted for such health care reform.

The anti-health care reform crowd derogatorily refer to the law that passed as either “Obamacare” and/or the “government take-over” of health care. Like the misinformation over the “death panels,” that is distortive propaganda. Such manipulative word choice implies that the health care reform law that was enacted will be a form of “socialized medicine” similar to the systems adopted in countries like Canada, Britain and France. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

President Obama and his party compromised greatly to get some health care reform accomplished. A single payer approach was nixed early on. Even a more modest “public option” was abandoned pretty soon into the debate. What was eventually enacted was modeled after the Massachusetts plan implemented under Republican Mitch Romney. The law that was actually enacted will require us to all buy insurance plans from for-profit companies. Republican President Richard Nixon long ago though that was a good idea. I’m not sure why the current Republicans are so hostile to the approach. It creates more customers for the insurance companies. Simultaneously, it will help many Americans who could not otherwise get affordable health insurance coverage. There are a lot of things I don’t like about the bill. But at least, it makes some modest improvement in the lives of people in need. In all honesty, the only reason I can imagine the current Republicans oppose the bill is that it is likely to be considered an accomplishment for President Obama. It could be used as a basis for his re-election.

The GOP has controlled the White House for many years and never did anything to enable people to get affordable, quality health insurance. They did not get rid of impediments to insurability based on preexisting medical conditions. Why on Earth not? People have been dying because they could not get treatment for chronic conditions. Families have lost their hard earned life savings when family members get sick. Costs have continued to spiral out of control. Who on Earth thinks that the status quo is desirable? It is not even sustainable. And gutting malpractice liability is not a panacea to the very complex problem. Texas has shown us that.

The link below includes Senator McConnell’s comments about the repeal of the health care law.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44688.html

I simply do not understand Senator McConnell’s priorities. I try very hard to see the good in all my brothers and sisters. But when some people place political gain above all else, it is a tremendous challenge to me. I admit that with sincere personal humility.

To try to understand why Senator McConnell might have such priorities, I have done a bit of research about him. The senator has publicly indicated for a long time that he is a Baptist, but apparently he no longer is affiliated with any Baptist church. Senator McConnell has three children from his first wife. He has been married to his second wife, Elaine Chao, since 1993. They are considered to be a major power couple in political circles. Senator McConnell is a lawyer by profession, but almost immediately went into politics instead of practicing law. He has been in Congress since 1985. He is currently one of the wealthiest members of Congress; his personal fortune is over $30 million. I’m not entirely clear how he earned this huge amount of money. From what I have read, it appears to be from mutual fund investments. Many Americans invest in mutual funds, but few of us have that kind of phenomenal success. The links below contain some background on Senator McConnell:

http://congress.org/congressorg/bio/id/262

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/3741/97/

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00003389&year=2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_McConnell

Matthew 9:12

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.”

Thy Kingdom Come by Randall Balmer (Battles Over Schools, Evolution & Environmentalism; Political Expediency & Hypocrisy)

Thy Kingdom Come provides insightful history lessons on a number of hot button issues involving the Religious Right. Balmer describes the growing debate over school vouchers and inadequate financial support for public schools. He goes into great depth to explain the continuing cultural scars to fundamentalists from the humiliation of the Scopes “monkey trial,” as well as the more recent quest for legitimization via the label of “intelligent design.”

Balmer also notes that one would intuitively predict Creationists would be passionate about conserving God’s creation, but that has not been the case in recent years. He explains how the Religious Right came to align themselves with conservative, pro-business politicians that worked aggressively to fight against any legal efforts to protect the environment. He also describes how some Evangelicals are beginning to rebel against this approach based on biblical principles of stewardship.

In his “Conclusion,” Balmer reflects back on the bottom line of the various themes he has explored. He concludes that the Religious Right has distorted the teachings of Christ by ignoring clear teachings on protecting the vulnerable in society and peacemaking in favor of politically expedient themes with flimsy biblical support. He notes the hypocrisies of leaders of the Religious Right including Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, William Bennett, and Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Balmer concludes that the ultimate aim of the Religious Right is to establish a “homogenous theocracy” analogous to that in seventeenth-century Massachusetts. But historian Balmer describes the lesson of Puritan New England as being clear:

Religion...functions best outside the political order, and often as a challenge
to the political order. When it identifies too closely with the state, it
becomes complacent and ossified, and efforts to coerce piety or to proscribe
certain behavior in the interests of moral conformity are unavailing.

Moreover, Balmer describes the Religious Right as more interested in moralism than morality, and are frankly “frightened by pluralism.” Consequently, the Religious Right is waging war on the First Amendment “in the interest of imposing its own theocratic vision” despite the irony that “no group has profited more from the First Amendment and the disestablishment of religion in American than evangelicals.”

Balmer ends the book with an exhortation to fellow believers:

[t]o reclaim their birthright as evangelical Christians and examine the
scriptures for themselves—absent the funhouse mirror distortions of the
Religious Right. For those equal to the task, I suggest a form of shock therapy:
juxtapose the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), arguably the highest expression
of Christian ethics, with the platform of the Republican Party.

Luke 11:9-10 (Darby Translation)

And I say to you, Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.
For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it will be opened.


John 9: 25, 30, 33

Then he answered, I do not know whether He is a sinner and wicked or not. But one thing I do know, that whereas I was blind before, now I see.
The man replied, Well, this is astonishing! Here a Man has opened my eyes, and yet you do not know where He comes from. [That is amazing!]
If this Man were not from God, He would not be able to do anything like this.

Luke 18:9-14 (The Message)

He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'
"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'"
Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."

Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament by Randall Balmer (Sep. of Church/State)

This book was a revelation to me. I read it not long after it was published in 2006. It was a time when I felt increasingly alienated from the media’s portrayal of Christianity as well as many local faith communities in Texas where I was living at the time. When I read the words of Jesus in the Bible, I was at a loss to understand how they could be used to support preemptive war and economic policies favoring the wealthy, as well as to foster hostility towards efforts to protect the most vulnerable in our society and the health of our fragile planet. However, until I found Thy Kingdom Come, I had begun to feel like one of the only folks who saw any type of a contradiction.

Dr. Balmer’s Preface begins:

I write as a jilted lover. The evangelical faith that nurtured me as a child and
sustains me as an adult has been hijacked by right-wing zealots who have
distorted the gospel of Jesus Christ, defaulted on the noble legacy of
nineteenth-century evangelical activism, and failed to appreciate the genius of
the First Amendment. They appear not to have read the same New Testament that I open before me every morning at the kitchen counter.

Randall Balmer is a professor of American religious history. One of the aspects of Thy Kingdom Come that I found most compelling was the historical commentary he provided to put into perspective the relatively recent attempts in the United States to impose religion on government. Although he is a committed Christian and well-versed in the Bible, Balmer makes clear he is not a theologian. He explicitly leaves to theologians the analysis and interpretation of Scripture.

As someone with many friends and family who belong to Southern Baptist congregations, I enjoyed reading of the history of the Baptist tradition. Balmer traces its roots to reformers in sixteenth century Europe who were deeply suspicious of church-state entanglements. In the New World, the Baptist tradition took root under the leadership of people like Roger Williams and Isaac Backus, who championed the ideas of separation of church and state. Williams was concerned that state endorsement of religion would diminish the authenticity of faith. Backus shared such concerns and noted that Jesus “made no use of secular force” in establishing the first Gospel church. Later, in the nineteenth century, George Washington Truett, characterized the Roman Empire’s embrace of Christianity as disastrous because “when Constantine crowned the union of church and state, the church was stamped with the spirit of the Caesars.” Truett also championed the concept of religious liberty as the “chiefest contribution” of America to civilization; he also declared it “preeminently a Baptist achievement.”

Balmer then compares the traditional Baptist scorn for mixing religion and government with the modern trend of many Baptists to meld the two. Since the late 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was taken over by conservatives. (Ironically, this took place during the presidency of a Southern Baptist, Jimmy Carter.) Since that time, the SBC has aligned itself more and more with the political movement of the Religious Right. Balmer gives examples of Baptist leaders advocating a mixing of religion and politics in the context of court rulings on school prayer, same sex marriage, reproductive choice issues, and the posting of the Ten Commandments on public property. Indeed, some leaders mentioned in the book are promoting the notion that the separation of church and state is a “myth” propagated by political opponents.

Nonetheless, historian Balmer builds a persuasive case that religion tends to flourish in societies where it is independent and not supported by the state. Indeed, I have witnessed this phenomenon first hand when I have traveled abroad. In countries where the government provides financial support to churches and/or regulates the activities of the church, I have been saddened by the way religion is marginalized in society. Certainly I witnessed this when I have traveled to the People’s Republic of China, and worshipped with local Christians. But I have also seen this happen in Europe, a traditional Christian stronghold in the two centuries since Jesus walked on this Earth.

When I lived in Europe for a school year in the 1990s, I traveled a fair amount around the continent and worshipped at a number of churches in the towns I visited. There were not as many churches as one typically encounters in the United States. Moreover, many of the church buildings are no longer even used for worship. Instead, many are vacant structures left to decay or are in decent shape physically but have been reduced to mere tourist venues. The churches that do open their doors for worship services typically have just one or two services each week, and have just a handful of worshippers at even the most popular services. When I lived in Europe, I was often one of the very few persons under the age of 60 in the churches I attended. I always wondered what would happen when those worshippers died or were physically unable to come to church any more. I was not sure if the folks who were middle aged at the time might take their place, or if there would eventually just be no worshippers.

In his book, occasionally Balmer does step aside from his role as historian and does inject a bit of theology:

But I know of no concept more radical than Jesus’ declaration of love.

This radical notion of love doesn’t comport very well with most
political agendas. Politics and politicians concern themselves with the
acquisition and the exercise of power, whereas the ethic of love, more often
than not, entails vulnerability and the abnegation of power. For the Religious
Right, the quest for power and political influence has led to both distortions
and contortions—the perpetration of the abortion myth, for instance, or the
selective literalism that targets certain sexual behaviors for condemnation,
while ignoring others. History, moreover, teaches us the dangers of allying
religion too closely with politics. It leads to intolerance in the political
arena, and it ultimately compromises the integrity of the faith.

This last line rings true to me and causes me particular concern. As a citizen and patriot, I am concerned about the intolerant attitudes displayed in our political arena these days. That is not good for our country. But perhaps more importantly, as a Christ follower, it disgusts me that the beliefs I hold so dear are betrayed by some Christians and non-believers for short-term political exploitation.

Ultimately, it is all in God’s hands. As a Christian, I believe my creator is omnipotent. He can install whomever he chooses in the White House, Congress or any other political office. Even the longest serving politicians are in office for only a finite political term. We human beings forget that God’s time line is much longer. To turn our back on his teachings in order to gain earthly power for a brief period, it astoundingly short-sighted, imprudent and tragic.





Matthew 22:21

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."


John 6:15

So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Mark 8:36 (Amplified Bible)

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life [in the eternal kingdom of God]?

The Nobel Peace Prize is Awarded to Liu Xiaobo

This week the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced it was awarding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a man who has worked for decades in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to promote human rights through nonviolent means. The Committee’s announcement is available at the link below:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/press.html

Members of our family were born in the PRC, so the honor bestowed on Mr. Liu is particularly noteworthy to us. The world has been awed by the PRC’s dramatic economic growth in recent years. We sometimes hear the downside to the growth is that Chinese workers are exploited in factories where they work long hours under poor conditions and are paid very little. We think of the mistreatment occurring at the hands of the private sector; the PRC government generally takes a laissez-faire approach to capitalism. There seems to be little regulation to protect human beings or the environment.

In recent years, as the country has embraced capitalism, we sometimes forget the PRC is still technically a communist country. At this point in time, however, the benefits of communism have evaporated, while all the horrors of communism remain. The state no longer guarantees a job, housing, or health care to its people. But it still limits basic freedoms we take for granted in the West like determining the size of one’s family, the freedom to speak one’s mind, the ability to criticize the government without fear of reprisal, and the ability to freely practice one’s chosen religion.

Our family has some American friends who currently live in the PRC. They moved there to work in a local start-up business. They are Christians, who have worked in their church back home in the United States, and would like to support local Christians in the PRC. However, the Chinese government does not welcome missionaries, and our friends are fearful of attracting the wrong kind of attention because it could lead to their expulsion. They realize that their e-mail can be monitored, so they have urged friends in the U.S. to be careful in the wording of religious messages in their e-mails. In keeping with their request, last Easter I sent them greetings but tried to avoid buzz words that might be a red flag to authorities. I am not adept at inventing code, but wrote to express my hope that our friends would find joy over the “son’s victory.” They understood my funky phrasing and were excited to get such greetings in an officially atheistic nation. The link below contains an article about missionaries in the PRC at the time of the Beijing Olympics.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2007-05-17-499802743_x.htm


After the announcement that Mr. Liu had won the Nobel Peace Prize, the PRC implemented a news blackout and people in the country do not even know who won this year’s Peace Prize. I heard on the news yesterday that Mr. Liu himself had not yet been told. The article below describes the news blackout.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/china.internet/index.html?hpt=Mid


It is amazing that the government is able to manipulate information so effectively in this day and age in a country with over a billion people. When I’ve traveled in the PRC and had an opportunity to speak with people who have lived their entire lives there, they are often not familiar with the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961, the Tiananmen Massacre, or the huge numbers of children in orphanages (mostly abandoned girls due to the One Child Policy). Because I don’t speak any Chinese dialect, I have only been able to speak with people who are fluent in English. Thus, I tend to only talk to some of the best educated folks in society. It is interesting because the folks I’ve spoken with are not sure what to believe when told by Westerners about these events that the government has not permitted the press to report. It is understandably difficult for them to try to decide who is more trustworthy--a friendly Westerner whom they do not know well, or their own government. They often have hesitation in believing what their government says, but it is hard to take in that the level of misinformation might be as wide in scope as it is.

The PRC is a country with a staggeringly large population. Much of its vast land is uninhabitable, so the people often live in crowded cities. Poverty is still a tremendous problem despite all the economic growth. In such a context, it can be easy to overlook individuals’ stories.

The link below includes a touching, personal description of Mr. Liu. It includes a profoundly beautiful letter that he wrote to his wife when he was being sent to prison last year. The depth and strength of his love is inspiring beyond words. Mr. Liu is clearly a patriot and a humanitarian who has been working for years at great personal risk to improve human rights in his country. But he is also a man with a soul who loves his wife very much. That love is helping him to bear the horror of a long imprisonment.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130451559

Mr. Liu’s words of love for his wife, as well as his hopes for freedom of expression in his country, remind me of my own blessings. I am deeply grateful for my husband and to live in a country where I can speak my mind without fear of imprisonment. May each of us not take for granted the blessings we enjoy.

Psalm 79:11

May the groans of the prisoners come before you; by the strength of your arm preserve those condemned to die.


Matthew 14:3-4, 9-10

Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for John had been saying to him: "It is not lawful for you to have her."
The king … had John beheaded in the prison

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Religious Leaders and Political Power)

There is a fascinating passage of God’s Politics where Wallis compares “the two major faith-inspired movements of the last fifty years that have tried to influence national politics: the black-church-led civil rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s and the religious Right movement of the 1980s and 1990s, exemplified by Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition.”

Wallis’s comparison is based on part of his reading of Blinded by Might by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, who were former leaders of the religious Right. Wallis writes in God’s Politics that the religious Right “bristled with pride” when the media publicly gave them substantial credit for Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980. Shortly thereafter, Falwell entered a packed auditorium with an ecstatic crowd on their feet as “Hail to the Chief” was played. Wallis states, “All of a sudden, conservative evangelicals who felt ignored and ridiculed for so long in the cultural backwaters of American life, almost since the infamous Scopes trial in the 1920s, were now in the national spotlight and getting their pictures taken in the Oval Office with the president.” Falwell and Reagan spoke regularly, and when Reagan was about to nominate Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court, Reagan asked Falwell to “trust my judgment.” Wallis states, “Perhaps anxious to be a player, a winner, an insider, Falwell went along, and a series of compromises began. Direct mail strategy and fund-raising came to dominate the religious Right’s political agenda over previous moral concerns. Political success defined as keeping political power, eventually became more important that the issues that initiated the formation of the religious Right in the first place. It’s an old story.” Thomas and Dobson lament in their book that little of their Christian agenda has actually been accomplished, and the religious Right have failed in their mission.

Wallis also noted that liberal religious leaders have also been “mesmerized by political power.” He observes that many were “reduced to defending Clinton’s indefensible moral behavior in a sexual and political scandal (or at least maintaining an awkward silence). Access clearly has its price.”

In contrast to those religious leaders who seek access and proximity to political power, Wallis observes that the civil rights movement succeeded because it was morally based and politically independent. The movement’s strength and base was not primarily inside politics, but rather at the grassroots. This helped its efficacy; it changed the way the American people thought about race and sought to affect the values of the culture. Wallis concludes, “The religious Right went wrong by forgetting its religious and moral roots and going for political power; the civil rights movement was proven right in operating out of its spiritual strength and letting its political influence flow from its moral influence. Other great social causes led by religious communities—abolition of slavery, child labor reform, women’s suffrage, and so on—all followed the same strategy.”

John 12:24-26 (The Message)

"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal.
"If any of you wants to serve me, then follow me. Then you'll be where I am, ready to serve at a moment's notice. The Father will honor and reward anyone who serves me.

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Politicians' Use of Religious Issues)

Wallis is critical of Democrats’ hesitancy to speak in religious terms. He rejects Howard Dean’s admonition to stay away from the issues of “guns, God, and gays” and to focus instead on jobs, health care and foreign policy. By contrast, Wallis approved of John Kerry’s references to Scripture and his own faith during the 2004 presidential election. Wallis suggests that those references were simply too few and too late in the campaign to have been politically successful.

Wallis notes that in declining generally to discuss overtly religious topics, Democrats have essentially been playing to Republican hands and letting the GOP define the terms of the debate. He states, “The ‘religious issues’ in an election get reduced to the Ten Commandments in public courthouses, gay-marriage amendments, prayer in schools, and, of course, abortion.” Wallis is adamant that there are a much wider array of political issues with religious significance including combating terrorism, remedying poverty, preserving the environment, and eradicating racism from our society.

I myself am very sensitive to his concern that the “religious issues” have been erroneous circumscribed to abortion and gay rights. However, many progressive Christians like myself have been repulsed in recent years by the exploitation of faith to achieve fleeting political power. I would not want the Democrats (or any other political party) to follow the tragic and misguided approach of the Republicans in that vein. I think there is a fine--though perhaps somewhat elusive--line between honestly referring to one’s faith as a guide to one’s political decisions, and exploiting the faith of voters to gain their political support. The former is transparent and natural. The latter is horrifying and completely lacking in integrity. I don’t understand God to be vengeful, but I certainly believe he is omnipotent. Consequently, I would not want to test my understanding that he not vengeful by consciously exploiting his Word for earthly gain!

Nonetheless, Wallis raises an important point that Christ followers should broaden our sense of “religious issues” in the political sphere. Both abortion and homosexuality are mentioned in Scripture in only fleeting ways (if at all). By comparison, poverty and justice are pervasive themes. However, I’m not convinced it is the responsibility of politicians to remind us of that. It seems to me that is more the responsibility of each Christ follow as he/she studies God’s Word, and also the responsibility of our church leaders to guide us in our understanding of the teachings of Scripture.

Matthew 8:3-4 (The Message)

Jesus reached out and touched him, saying, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there, all signs of the leprosy were gone. Jesus said, "Don't talk about this all over town. Just quietly present your healed body to the priest, along with the appropriate expressions of thanks to God. Your cleansed and grateful life, not your words, will bear witness to what I have done."

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It by Jim Wallis (Prophetic Voice of Religion)

Jim Wallis is an Evangelical pastor and the founder of Sojourners. He has written several books, and this particular one was written in 2005. At the time, much of the country was still dissecting the 2004 presidential election, and the role of conservative Christians in re-electing George W. Bush in a very tight race. Wallis notes that after the election, the media focused on the “moral values voter.” A poll revealed that 80% of voters, who said “moral values” were the most important issue influencing their vote, had voted for Bush. Wallis points out that such polls are flawed. Abortion and gay marriage are typically viewed as being key to “moral values” politics, but Wallis notes that is a simplistic and incorrect way to look at the issue. Poverty and war are also “moral values” issues, but that point is overlooked by the media and pollsters.

In God’s Politics, Wallis is critical of religious leaders like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who claimed that God was on the side of George W. Bush and Christians had a duty to re-elect him in the 2004 election. He decries single issue voting, and raises the importance of analyzing political candidates based on issues with biblical roots like caring for the poor, protecting the environment, respecting human rights, avoiding wars and truth telling.

Wallis laments the “enormous public misrepresentation of Christianity” in the media which has led to people around the world thinking that the Christian faith “stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its true meaning.” He asks, “How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American?” He notes that the religious Right tends to focus only on sexual and cultural issues while ignoring the “weightier matters of justice.” Wallis states, “Most people just don’t get it, because they know that Jesus was on the side of the poor and the cause of peace. The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious Right.” He observes, “The religious Right’s grip on public debates about values has been driven in part by a media that continues to give airtime to the loudest religious voices, rather than the most representative, leaving millions of Christians and other people of faith without a say in the values debate.”

However, Wallis is also critical of leaders on the left who want to negate or diminish the important role of spiritual values in shaping social policy. He warns that “[t]he spiritual component in all this is absolutely crucial. An understanding of how sacred the blessing of life is must undergird all our efforts for justice and for peace....each of those forgotten souls [the poor and victims of war] was made in the image of God and carries that sacred value.”

Wallis advocates a “genuinely ‘prophetic’ spirituality to the urgent need for social justice.” He clarifies that “[p]rophecy is not future telling, but articulating moral truth,” and the “prophets diagnose the present and point the way to a just solution.” Wallis states: “In politics, the best interest of the country is served when the prophetic voice of religion is heard—challenging both Right and Left from consistent moral ground. The evangelical Christians of the nineteenth century combined revivalism with social reform and helped lead movements for abolition and woman’s suffrage—not to mention the faith-based movement that directly preceded the rise of the religious Right, namely the American civil rights movement led by the black churches. The truth is that most of the important movements for social change in America have been fueled by religion—progressive religion. The stark moral challenges of our time have once again begun to awaken this prophetic tradition.”

Wallis explains the power of prophetic religion with a specific example from our country’s recent past. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, Dr. King met with President Johnson to tell him that the next critical step was passage of a voting rights act. Johnson was sympathetic, but explained he had used all of his political capital to get the civil rights law passed and a voting rights act just wasn’t a political possibility. Instead of giving up, Dr. King and the SCLC began organizing a protest on the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Alabama. On Bloody Sunday, civil rights protestors were beaten savagely by Sheriff Jim Clark and a large group of white police officers. In response, two weeks later, hundreds of clergy from various Christian and non-Christian denominations across the country came to Alabama to take part in the march from Selma to Montgomery. The civil rights struggle had become a religious one for many of the participants, and the whole nation was watching. Five months afterwards, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted by Congress. King and his allies had shifted the debate and public opinion to enable President Johnson to boldly go to a joint session of Congress to call for a voting rights act. Wallis gives other examples of such prophetic religion such as Desmond Tutu, Alan Bosak and Frank Chikane of South Africa, Oscar Romero in El Salvador, and church leaders in the Philippines during the reign of Ferdinand Marcos and in Poland during Communist rule. He also notes the success of Christian organizations like World Vision, Bread for the World and Habitat for Humanity, and the faith-inspired movement of Jubilee 2000.

Wallis asks, “With the Republicans offering war overseas and corporate dominance at home, and the Democrats failing to offer any real alternatives, who will raise a prophetic voice for social and economic justice and for peace?” Wallis answers the question by stating there has never been a clearer need for leadership by churches and the religious community. However, Wallis warns that to be effective, prophetic voices need to not just protest but to offer alternatives. He states: “Many people will engage in protest, but even more are likely to follow an alternative that offers a better way. To offer an alternative is always more challenging than just protest; it requires more work, creativity, and risk. Like many others, I came of age during the 1960s, when the struggle for justice was embodied in the archetype of protest. We learned our lessons about politics in the streets, and the habit of protest is still deep within us. But protest can become static and formulaic. The aim of effective and transformative protest should be to illumine a society to its need for change. In other words, protest must be instructive to succeed, more than destructive. It should, at its best, point the way to an alternative, rather than just register the anger of its demonstrators. Protest must not become just a ritual of resistance, offering a laundry list of grievances.”

Observing a recent time when prophetic religion was absent, Wallis lamented the lack of a “serious national debate before” invading Iraq. He blamed the lack of debate on the Bush administration, which “seemed to equate dissent and even debate with a lack of patriotism.” Wallis quotes from a sermon given by the Reverend Peter Gomes at about that time where he stated, “This is a frightening time, and if one cannot speak out of Christian conscience and conviction now, come what may, then we are forever consigned to moral silence...What is and has always been lovely about our country is our right and our duty to criticize those in power, to dissent from their policies if we think them wrong, and to hold our alternative vision to be as fully valid as theirs.”

Matthew 10:27 (New Living Translation)

27 What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!

Amos 5:24 (New International Version - UK)

24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Matthew 23:23 (New International Version - UK)

23 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices— mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law— justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Christ the King Sunday

Today is the feast of Christ the King. The feast day was instituted in 1925 in the Catholic church by Pope Pius XI, but other Christian denominations have since adopted the feast—including Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians and Methodists.

In establishing the feast day, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical called Quas Primas. The text of the encyclical is available at the Vatican’s website: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas_en.html. It summarizes the scriptural bases for understanding Jesus to be a king, and then it explains the characterization. Pope Pius XI quotes Cyril of Alexandria who had explained that Christ had “dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but his by essence and by nature.” The encyclical then states:

“This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things. That this is so the above quotations from Scripture amply prove, and Christ by his own action confirms it. On many occasions, when the Jews and even the Apostles wrongly supposed that the Messiah would restore the liberties and the kingdom of Israel, he repelled and denied such a suggestion. When the populace thronged around him in admiration and would have acclaimed him King, he shrank from the honor and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate he declared that his kingdom was not of this world. The gospels present this kingdom as one which men prepare to enter by penance, and cannot actually enter except by faith and by baptism, which, though an external rite, signifies and produces an interior regeneration. This kingdom is opposed to none other than to that of Satan and to the power of darkness. It demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross... It would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power. Nevertheless, during his life on earth he refrained from the exercise of such authority, and although he himself disdained to possess or to care for earthly goods, he did not, nor does he today, interfere with those who possess them. Non eripit mortalia qui regna dat caelestia.”

Matthew 16:24-28

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

With God on Our Side (2004) (Choosing to Be an Advisor, Not a Prophet)

To me, the most fascinating part of the film came in the discussion of Reagan’s first term as president. After the election, Jerry Falwell held a press conference where he spoke with pride of a president and congress committed to helping conservative Christians enact laws and implement policies to make abortion illegal, permit “voluntary school prayer,” and restore America’s military might. In an interview for the film, Jerry Falwell later spoke of the feeling of “elation” from that election victory. Similarly, Ed Dobson (the vice president of the Moral Majority) spoke of the thrill of eating lunch at the White House. The film notes that in helping Reagan win the presidency, conservative Christians relished their proximity to power.

Early in Reagan’s first term, there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Falwell describes in the film that he was on vacation with his family when Reagan called him to tell him of his decision to nominate Sandra Day O’Connor to the Court and to ask Falwell to not raise opposition immediately. Anti-abortion activists were concerned about O’Connor’s pro choice voting record in the Arizona state senate. Nonetheless, Falwell explains in the film that he did agree to keep quiet and ultimately became a supporter of O’Connor’s nomination.

Ed Dobson then explains this decision with a “biblical paradigm.” He noted that in politics one could choose to be an advisor or a prophet. Dobson states:

If you choose to be a prophet, then you don’t have a lot of influence on the political reality, but you are always free to speak what you perceive to be the truth for the current historical moment. Or you can be an advisor with a sense of truth, a sense of value, but your objective is simply to influence the process. And I think the Moral Majority moved from a prophetic role into more of an advisor role and lost some of its ability to speak against, even the administration it was for.

To me, it seems clear that Dobson is saying the Moral Majority deliberately chose to compromise their sense of truth in order to have a seat at the table with Caesar. That is a stunning admission. In my own opinion, it was also a frightening, tragic choice.

Matthew 12:18

"Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.”


Luke 4:5-8

“The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

With God on Our Side (2004) (History of the Conservative Christian Political Movement)

I found this documentary to be absolutely fascinating because I’ve been perplexed by the embrace of Republican politics in recent years by conservative Christians. This documentary meticulously traced the development of the affiliation of conservative Christians with the GOP through interviews with many of the most influential members of the Religious Right. But frankly, even after watching the film I’m still perplexed. Watching the film, I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Everything was mixed up, nothing made sense. The dialogue was like Jabberwocky. I just don’t understand how one can believe Jesus’s teachings lead us to support the policies of the GOP. If he were here, I certainly don’t believe Jesus would be endorsing any political party or politician; he did not advocate meddling with Caesar but was submissive to secular government. Moreover, the GOP’s positions have never seemed pro-God to me, so this particular political alignment just baffles me.

With God on Our Side traces the history of the conservative Christian political movement and seems to suggest the first spark was the Supreme Court decision disallowing institutionalized prayer in the public schools. This notion stumped me. When I was in elementary school, there was no institutional prayer, but I prayed all the time for God to help me traverse all the mundane challenges of the school day. However, in a pluralistic society, I cannot imagine why anyone would want teachers, administrators or even students to lead public school classes in group prayers. Now that I am a parent, I want my husband and me to take the lead in our kids’ spiritual formation—with the support of their Sunday school teacher and our pastor. I simply cannot fathom why the “school prayer” issue would galvanize devout Christians to rally around the Republican Party.

The film also describes Billy Graham’s implicit endorsement of Nixon as a watershed moment for the intersection of conservative Christians with GOP Party politics. However, Jerry Falwell is interviewed in the film and describes that Graham himself would later say that decision was a mistake. After viewing the rest of the film, I was confused why the rest of the prominent conservative Christians interviewed did not learn from that mistake and subsequently refrain from embracing politicians.

The film chronicles the conservative Christians’ short-lived excitement and then complete rejection of Jimmy Carter. This was also confusing to me. They seemed to be convinced of the sincerity of Carter’s beliefs, but dismissed the importance of their common faith in favor of a series of political litmus tests of questionable biblical authority. That rejection of Carter was even more confusing to me as the film describes their embraced of his opponent, Ronald Reagan, in 1980. Reagan was divorced, not even a church-goer and was married to a devotee of astrology. In essence, the conservative Christians chose a secular Hollywood actor with smooth oratory skills over a devout, born-again Christian from the South. I just don’t get it.

As With God on Our Side described the increasingly close alliance with the GOP in the 1980s, I actually began to feel bad for the conservative Christians interviewed. It seemed so clear that they had compromised their most sacred beliefs in vain, and were used by the politicians they supported. The film makes it clear that the Reagan administration wooed conservative Christians prior to elections, but after elections ignored their political agenda in favor of economic policies that were not the concern of the conservative Christians. However, instead of realizing the folly of such a close political alignment, the film shows that conservative Christians in the late 1980s and 1990s turned to new strategies to gain greater political influence and government power. Such efforts culminated in the rise of George W. Bush.

Matthew 18:1-5


At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
He called a little child, whom he placed among them. And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes a humble place—becoming like this child—is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

John 6:15 (New Living Translation)

When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.


Luke 23:39-43 (Today’s New International Version)

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!"
But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. "
Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."