As the Supreme Court listens to arguments on the constitutionality of DOMA and considers what authority the federal government should have in marriage, I am again considering my role as a politically active, or at least politically aware, Christian. During a conversation with a couple of genuinely devoted Christian friends, I was caught off guard by their response to my concerns about the marriage crisis. It was a perpective I've heard before, but after recent conversations with other informed and concerned Christians, I assumed that most believers were turning their ears and eyes toward the rapidly changing political landscape and recognizing the alarming pace at which our liberties are eroding. Instead, they downplayed the potential collapse of DOMA as an inevitable sign of the times that shouldn't cause unwarranted worry.
Try selling that passive political philosophy to someone like Dr. Ben Carson. The most powerful speakers at CPAC were confessing Christians, and their example shows the weakness of remaining passively ignorant about our nation. I don't know if anyone would dare argue that Dr. Carson and Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schlafly would be better Christians if they would sit quietly at home. It's baffling to me why some Christians parrot the same lines about letting the world's system fall into ruin because, after all, we're going to Heaven, and this world is passing away. Is this wisdom or a shirking of responsibility?
If we applied the same attitude to other areas of our lives, imagine the absurdity. I shouldn't waste any more time than necessary on my outward appearance because Paul compares our bodies to tents that will be taken down; therefore, I should wear rags, wash only when the stench and itching becomes unbearable, and eat and drink whatever is at hand. I'm a citizen of Heaven; therefore, I shouldn't waste my time picking up trash around my community, attending PTA meetings, going to local ball games, or doing anything else that lacks eternal value because society is created by worldly people, and I should just let them run things their way until they self destruct.
We are stewards, and because of Christ, we have not only the abilities God instilled in us at conception, but also the supernatural qualities of salt and light that make the world a better place, that heal the people and the land. Many Christians will turn to the New Testament and cite the biblical saints who weren't entangled in the politics of their day, when the Romans were certainly oppressing them more than our government is today, and conclude that we should follow their salvation-centered example, going out as missionaries to spread the gospel.
It's easy to float along in a tepid sea of apathy, as long as my spiritual future is assured. When we share the gospel with the world, and when people accept the truth and allow the Spirit to begin transforming their minds, we should expect to see outward healthy changes where they live: advancements in technology, clean water, and compassionate treatment of women, children, and the weak. Those are some of the promises that today's business-focused missionaries bring to the international communities they want to reach. Neglecting our own country by allowing its Christian-based foundation of freedom to decompose, while simultaneously trying to export the same freedom to far lands, is completely contradictory.
Of course my perspective about our civic responsibility rests solidly on the very arguments other well-meaning Christians use. If I wasn't sure that my life had eternal value and destiny, if I had any doubt that history is in God's hands, if I didn't believe that my life should bear spiritual fruit, I would gladly throw off the heavy burden of being a participating American citizen. Just being aware of current attacks on civil liberties is discouraging and enraging. Shutting out the world and shrugging my shoulders would be easier. Part of our demonstrating a belief in eternity, God's sovereignty, and spiritual transformation is by being keenly aware of the spiritual state of our culture so we can stand against corruption and the darkness that seduces millions into eternal separation from glory. It's a spiritual battle, so we shouldn't minimize the importance of our political participation. Supreme Court decisions, Presidential vetoes, Congressional debates--these are far from being inconsequential. Forget the selfish consideration of how laws and policies will affect us, and think about the immeasurable power politicians have in constructing the world for future generations. I hesitate to even type that cliche, "future generations," but consider the millions of children born into places--in America!--where they may never hear about the truth of Christ; their world can be so darkened and secluded from the kind of Christian America we know, that the light of Christ may never reach them. Abortion, gay marriage, sex education, human trafficking, drug abuse, pornography, liberal education--all of these devastating sins of our country will be levied against the lives of unborn generations by the stroke of a few politicians' pens. It's our indifference that allows that to happen.
It is a spiritual battle, one that requires diligent, intercessory prayer that moves the hand of God through the thick, high walls of Washington, effecting changes we are powerless to make in the places none of us can reach: the minds of many godless, carnal leaders.
Don't believe this is the time to withdraw into a monastic enclave of powerless cultural Christianity. Now is the time to engage ourselves in the battle with ferocity and passion for the Lord.
Dr. Carson's speech at the Prayer Breakfast resonated like John the Baptist's criticism of Herod's impropriety with his brother's wife. Carson won't experience a literal beheading, though the press has been trying to decapitate his character ever since; and though he has drawn attacks onto himself, he has also stirred up the life blood in the hearts of many Christians who had resigned themselves to being ineffectual victims of an increasingly hostile culture. Let's experience life fully and learn what it's like to oppose evil wherever it resides.
Watch Dr. Ben Carson's CPAC 2013 speech.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
My Mother Marched in DC to Protest Vietnam...
I attended CPAC 2013. What's remarkable is I don't think my mother's flower-child views and mine are all that different. I think I would have been right beside her in those hippy-dippy late-60's, protesting our government's effort to export freedom at the cost of our nation's men, despite public opinion. I have to credit my sister with opening my eyes to this paradoxical similarity between my Tea Party consevativism and my mother's anti-war liberalism. I'm not stuffing flowers into the barrel of a National Guardsman's gun, but I am on Twitter telling the establishment to stuff it. I'm not delusional; I know my tweets never make the slightest twitter in the ears of a single politician, but my mother's marching didn't end the Vietnam War, either. She was driven with the same patriotic fervor that now energizes me: the unbridled American spirit that compels and even demands that I care deeply about what is happening in Washington. Because what those men (and few women) are discussing, signing, and bargaining away is my freedom and safety and future.
Righteous Indignation and Demonic were two gigantic doses of schema-altering literature. I felt like my brain exploded, reading those two books back-to-back. A veil lifted. I could see the machinations of sordid politics that had been working behind the scenes to undermine true liberty and religious freedom in America since the nation's birth. I also felt a tremendous sense of my own responsibilty to at least pay attention to what is happening locally and at the state and national level, and not to rely solely on the main-stream media, not even on Fox News, but to search wide and deep for broader coverage of everything that's going on behind closed doors, under the rugs, in the nooks and crannies where politicians and other crooks hide their dirty, nefarious deeds.
Everything my history teachers taught me was altered and distorted to fit the liberal narrative. The truth about who supported the Civil Rights Movement, as one example, was never brought to light. Either my teachers blatantly lied or purposely insinuated that those big, bad white Republicans had been oppressing blacks since Lincoln's assassination--a crime probably committed by a right-wing John Wilkes Booth--failing to mention that oh-so-insignificant detail that the Southern Democrats had always been the enemies of desegregation. Breitbart and Coulter tore down all those faulty, misconceived edifices and left me desperate to completely reconstruct my understanding of our history and our current condition.
Now I'm consuming as much literature and blog media as my brain can handle--more than I can process, really. I read Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, Beck's The Overton Window and Arguing with Idiots, Malkin's Culture of Corruption; I watched Occupy Unmasked and Runaway Slave.
Then, on a whim, and at a good friend's urging, I booked a flight to DC for the last day of CPAC, where I would meet Phyllis Schlafly, Dr. Ben Carson, and Ann Coulter, among others.
The convention wasn't all sunshine and tea parties. I left knowing Republicans are going to lose the next election, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum. They are going to compromise and prostitute themselves in a desperate attempt to win over liberal voters, "independents" or "libertarians," Hispanics, gays, and everyone else who holds up a middle finger to the GOP. I struggle to even find the right word to label my political beliefs. For simplicity, I call myself a Republican or a Conservative, because those are terms people identify with the Right, and at least that's the general direction where I'm standing. But those words are muddled because like the liberals, Republicans are twisting and bending words until they have an entirely new meaning, leaving us wondering why the "conservative Republicans" are sidling up next to our enemies on the Left (see Gingrich's say-nothing speech at CPAC 2013). The Tea Party deserves credit for the motivation and hope I now hold with the likes of Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, two tremendous speakers at CPAC, I might add.
There's a growing voice of dissent coming from people just like me, and it's not rumblings from the aged and uneducated, as the Left would like to believe. The voice of dissent is rising in young people, educated people, and we've never lifted our voices before. We're on Twitter, we're on the blogs, we're watching and listening more intently than ever. We're still drawing encouragement from the defeated candidates and from the badgered bloggers, and even from Breitbart, because once you've heard the truth, you know you're willing to go the distance, even to Washington, to stand, and to keep standing, no matter what they throw at us.
Righteous Indignation and Demonic were two gigantic doses of schema-altering literature. I felt like my brain exploded, reading those two books back-to-back. A veil lifted. I could see the machinations of sordid politics that had been working behind the scenes to undermine true liberty and religious freedom in America since the nation's birth. I also felt a tremendous sense of my own responsibilty to at least pay attention to what is happening locally and at the state and national level, and not to rely solely on the main-stream media, not even on Fox News, but to search wide and deep for broader coverage of everything that's going on behind closed doors, under the rugs, in the nooks and crannies where politicians and other crooks hide their dirty, nefarious deeds.
Everything my history teachers taught me was altered and distorted to fit the liberal narrative. The truth about who supported the Civil Rights Movement, as one example, was never brought to light. Either my teachers blatantly lied or purposely insinuated that those big, bad white Republicans had been oppressing blacks since Lincoln's assassination--a crime probably committed by a right-wing John Wilkes Booth--failing to mention that oh-so-insignificant detail that the Southern Democrats had always been the enemies of desegregation. Breitbart and Coulter tore down all those faulty, misconceived edifices and left me desperate to completely reconstruct my understanding of our history and our current condition.
Now I'm consuming as much literature and blog media as my brain can handle--more than I can process, really. I read Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, Beck's The Overton Window and Arguing with Idiots, Malkin's Culture of Corruption; I watched Occupy Unmasked and Runaway Slave.
Then, on a whim, and at a good friend's urging, I booked a flight to DC for the last day of CPAC, where I would meet Phyllis Schlafly, Dr. Ben Carson, and Ann Coulter, among others.
The convention wasn't all sunshine and tea parties. I left knowing Republicans are going to lose the next election, and the next, and the next, ad infinitum. They are going to compromise and prostitute themselves in a desperate attempt to win over liberal voters, "independents" or "libertarians," Hispanics, gays, and everyone else who holds up a middle finger to the GOP. I struggle to even find the right word to label my political beliefs. For simplicity, I call myself a Republican or a Conservative, because those are terms people identify with the Right, and at least that's the general direction where I'm standing. But those words are muddled because like the liberals, Republicans are twisting and bending words until they have an entirely new meaning, leaving us wondering why the "conservative Republicans" are sidling up next to our enemies on the Left (see Gingrich's say-nothing speech at CPAC 2013). The Tea Party deserves credit for the motivation and hope I now hold with the likes of Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, two tremendous speakers at CPAC, I might add.
There's a growing voice of dissent coming from people just like me, and it's not rumblings from the aged and uneducated, as the Left would like to believe. The voice of dissent is rising in young people, educated people, and we've never lifted our voices before. We're on Twitter, we're on the blogs, we're watching and listening more intently than ever. We're still drawing encouragement from the defeated candidates and from the badgered bloggers, and even from Breitbart, because once you've heard the truth, you know you're willing to go the distance, even to Washington, to stand, and to keep standing, no matter what they throw at us.
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