Why FBC Farmersville Is Taking a Bus to Stand4Life: Thoughts about Political Engagement for Churches

I've served as a pastor at FBC Farmersville for 14 years. Those 14 years have witnessed some of the greatest political turbulence of my lifetime. Many of those political issues—Obamacare, Same-Sex Marriage, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—have had direct and significant impact upon my church or my personal exercise of my faith. And yet, in all of those years, I've never involved our congregation in any sort of a political (or even quasi-political) rally.

Until tonight.

Tonight the FBC Farmersville church bus will take a group down to Austin, TX, to the Texas Values Stand4Life Rally at 7:00 PM. I've invited people to go using the church mailing list. I've taken precious time out of the Sunday morning worship service to promote this event. I'm all-in.

I don't see this as any sort of a watershed event by which I've come to "see the light," such that now I'm going to become much more political as a pastor. I'm not changing in any way that I can perceive. It's just that this particular event at this particular moment compels me to become involved in ways that past events have not.

1. Abortion is different from a lot of other issues. I wouldn't take a bus down to Austin to defend our tax exemption, for example. But abortion is a life-or-death question on which it is required that people stand up in defense of the weak and powerless. I, in my reading of Old and New Testaments, believe that I am commanded to be one of the people who does that. Those commands do not represent a special calling for me; they are binding upon all disciples. We cannot turn a blind eye to this issue while claiming to be following the way of Christ.

2. This is a chance to do something positive rather than negative. Yes, it is possible that the two "groups" will clash in Austin tonight, but Bart Barber and FBC Farmersville will not be a part of that. Will. Not.

   I'm not going to Austin for the purpose of "defeating" anyone, although victory for this cause will unfortunately mean the defeat of people who are determined to serve on the side of evil. My purpose in going is simply to provide positive support. I know Jodie Laubenburg, for example, and she is one of the sponsors of HB2. She is sponsoring this legislation because she believes that she is called to use her influence as a Representative in the State House to do good. She is trying to stand up and abate the unrelenting slaughter of babies that is being perpetuated all around us.

   Along the way, she's being opposed and vilified and caricatured. The pro-infanticide legions are not failing to stand up against her. Will anyone stand up to support her? To encourage her? To let her know that she's doing the right thing? To give her that shot in the arm that will sustain her in the struggle?

   We will. That's why we're going.

   And we're likewise hoping to support Scott Turner and Craig Estes, who (after redistricting) now represent the people of FBC Farmersville in Austin. They are human beings. Like any of us, they could grow weary in doing good. They need encouragement, and we hope to give it to them.

3. After what happened in the State Senate chamber last time, this is a question of justice and the rule of law. Mob rule is not a pretty thing. When legislation is passed by due process but shouted down by a few bitter, angry liberals, then chaos has won the day over civility. This special session of the Texas Legislature is not just about abortion—it's about having a functioning and peaceful system of government. It is imperative that this bill pass, just as it already really did, so that no group will be encouraged to throw the sort of juvenile hissy-fit that Wendy Davis and her henchmen threw down in Austin a couple of weeks ago.

And so, in just two hours we will board the bus and depart for Austin. If you're going, too, I'd be delighted to see you there. If not, and if you are a Texan, I hope you'll take a moment in your own way (by telephone, Internet, or even an old-fashioned letter), to speak a good and kindly word to a member of the State Legislature who is laboring in the face of tremendous pressure to defend innocent life in our state.

A Way Forward for Conservative Evangelicals

The election is over and President Obama has won another four years. The fate of the GOP was sealed with the nomination of Mitt Romney, and Evangelicals knew it. Evangelicals vote for Mitt Romney. A few Evangelicals altered their theology and terminology in favor of Mitt Romney. But Romney was not the choice of Evangelicals.

Why did Evangelicals vote for Mitt Romney? Because they did not believe that they had any other good choice. That's what has to change. Trust me: Somewhere in America there's a Bob Dole IV, and whoever he is, today he is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2016. If Evangelicals want to have more and better options, Evangelicals are going to have to create them. I'm happy to get the ball rolling by offering a few thoughts

1. The hard work of prioritizing our convictions lies before us. This will be the universal conclusion drawn this morning by Republicans, although different Republicans will apply the process differently. The major elements of Republican ideology are, in my estimation: (1)Free-Market Capitalism, (2)The Pro-Life Agenda, (3)Hawkish Foreign Policy, (4)Constitutionalism, (5)Nativism and Anti-Immigrationism, (6)The Law & Order Agenda, and (7)The Anti-Homosexuality Agenda.

   I didn't take four weeks to develop that list, but instead threw it together on the fly. Perhaps I've missed something important, but I feel pretty good about it as top-of-my-head efforts go.

   We're going to have to prioritize these things, as I said. And we're going to have to do so with some of these other factors in mind.

2. The Republican Party has to add not merely individual voters to its rolls, but larger and more rapidly growing blocs of voters. This is where the GOP ought to listen to Evangelicals if it wants to survive. Evangelicalism is growing among African-Americans and Latinos. The GOP is not. Obviously, Evangelicalism is not the cause of Republican demographic woes, for in the key ethnic groups that brought woe to the GOP last night, Evangelicals are succeeding.

   The question is: If the GOP persists in alienating African-American and Latino Evangelicals, then among White Republican Evangelicals, which of those three words will win out? Will we stand in coalition with fellow Evangelicals, with fellow Republicans, or just with fellow white people? I think we should stand with Evangelicals in the political arena.

   Of the ideological elements given above, two stand out as highly problematic: the question of immigration and the question of economic theory. The economic question is not as troubling as it may seem. The country could become a bit more oriented toward Free-Market Capitalism while maintaining a commitment to the social safety net. I think that the safety net concept is important to these demographic groups. Principled opposition to the safety net is probably not going to take root here, but Bill Clinton accomplished welfare reform, yet he retains robust support among these folks.

   The immigration question is where the problem lies. And, to speak frankly, some of the more extreme rhetoric on immigration from within the GOP is wrongheaded and wronghearted. I believe that there is an enormous pool of (potentially?) committed Pro-Life Evangelicals who could be developed from within the Hispanic community, but we'll never know so long as Pro-Life Evangelicals are wedded to a severe immigration platform plank.

   As for African-Americans, it seemed to me that quite a number of them were not happy with the gay-rights agenda within the Democratic Party, but where else could they go? I can relate to their feelings: I wasn't thrilled with Mitt Romney (nor were many of you), but we didn't have a lot of options open to us, did we? The major obstacles, I suspect, are fiscal rather than cultural in nature.

   Although the phrase "compassionate conservatism" is probably beyond rehabilitation at this point, a fusion between a more mercy-themed fiscal policy and a strong social conservatism could be a game-changer within the African-American community (if everyone were acting in good faith). At the very least, it is a conversation worth having. I'm not sure that I understand completely what policy changes would have to take place in order to form a coalition between Pro-Life White Evangelicals and Pro-Life Black Evangelicals, but I'm at least willing to ask that question and learn the answer.

   What concerns me is that a conversation has taken place this year among African-American Evangelicals over how their relationship with the Democratic Party will be affected by the radical Democrat sexual agenda, and Pro-Life White Evangelicals never even entered that conversation in any meaningful way. Maybe we don't succeed at building coalitions with African-Americans over justice for the unborn because we don't try very hard to build those coalitions in the first place—not in any way in which we are willing to concede as much as we are asking them to concede.

I'd love to write more, but I'm out of time for today. Rather than stitch together a mega-post over several days, I' think I'll just go ahead and sally forth with this much of whats swimming around in my head and get your reactions, with the promise of more to come.

I Might Not Vote for Mitt Romney

I'm considering—seriously considering—writing in "Mike Huckabee" when I vote for President of the United States on Election Day.

1. Not because Mitt Romney is a Mormon. He is a Mormon, of course. The personal implications of that are real and frightening. There is only one way of salvation for human beings. He has rejected it and embraced a lie instead of the truth. He is lost.

   Nevertheless, I do not believe that we should have a religious test for public office in the United States of America. I would vote for a Mormon. I was planning, until a few minutes ago, to vote to have a magic underwear closet installed in the Lincoln Bedroom, and I was entirely comfortable with that.

2. Not because I strongly suspect that Mitt Romney is still the liberal that he was when he was Governor of Massachusetts. I really do. I fully expect that, once he is safely ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania (if, indeed, that were to transpire), he will do absolutely nothing to carry forward a conservative vision for America. I really don't know why liberals are so worried about him.

   And yet, never in our history have we had a president as liberal as Barack Obama. I'm not sure that we've ever in our history had a serious CANDIDATE for the presidency who was as liberal as Barack Obama. I'll take an insincere liberal pretending to be a conservative over a liberal true-believer any day of the week. Facing the choices we face, I was prepared to vote for Mitt Romney in spite of my well-founded suspicions.

3. Not because Mitt Romney is such a weak candidate. Imagine how differently the last debate would've gone if we could've had a candidate actually capable of taking the fight to Barack Obama over Obamacare? What if we had a candidate with the convictional nerve to challenge the President over his atrocious record on religious liberty when he starts to talk about Obama's religious-funding-for-chemical-abortion mandate?

   And yet, I've voted for these self-defeating kamikaze GOP candidates before: Bob Dole, John McCain. I was prepped to do so again.

   Really, what has lost my vote for Mitt Romney is nothing that Mitt Romney has done or has been, nothing that Barack Obama has done or has been—the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association probably cost Mitt Romney my November ballot when it stopped calling Mormonism a cult explicitly because of this election.

4. Because walking away from the GOP in this election may be the only way to save the gospel from the pragmatic branch of Evangelicalism that never met a doctrine it wouldn't throw under the bus for the right price, I may not vote for Mitt Romney in November. I can imagine circumstances in which I would vote for Mitt Romney, but under no circumstances will I play make-believe about his heresy. That price is too high. That is a bridge too far.

   For the sake of my congregation, when Billy Graham is muddying the waters of the gospel, I have an obligation to provide clarity. For the sake of Mormons in my community who need to know of their need for the gospel of Jesus Christ and who are being reassured in their damnable heresy by none less than Billy Graham, I have an obligation to provide clarity.

If the election came down to a single vote, that vote were mine, and the circumstances of the election put me in a situation of having to choose between a vote that would doom the nation to four more years of the curse upon our land that is the Obama Administration or a vote that would leave doubt in anyone's mind whether the true followers of the gospel of Jesus Christ consider Mormonism to be a cult—if that were the choice that I faced and it were all within my hands, Rick Warren would be praying at another Obama inauguration in January.

Why? Do I want Obama to win? No. The defeat of Barack Obama is a priority of mine. But it is only one among many priorities. And in that list of priorities, that particular one isn't at the top…isn't in the top ten.

I've got my priorities straight. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association doesn't. I'm worried about some of the other institutions of Evangelicalism around me.

I'm worried about some of you.

Prove me wrong. Prove the BGEA wrong. Prove Mitt Romney wrong. Come out HARD against this terrible mistake, and do it BEFORE the election.

Charles Blow's Inadvertent Indictment of Leftist Politics

Charles Blow is a Democrat-oriented columnist for the New York Times. He has written a column this week entitled "Starving the Future." Blow's intention in the column was to build a case for Democratic entitlement policies (and thereby to attack VP candidate Paul Ryan) by envisaging the dire competitive future that American children face vis-à-vis their Chinese and Indian peers.

Here's Blow's rationale, excerpted in his own words from the article and presented faithfully and true to the flow of his rhetoric:

1. "Emerging economic powers China and India are heavily investing in educating the world’s future workers while we squabble about punishing teachers and coddling children."
2. Why is the future so bright for the children of China and India? Because "by 2030, China will have 200 million college graduates — more than the entire U.S. work force," and "by 2017, India will graduate 20 million people from high school — or five times as many as in the United States."
3. What is it that makes the future so bleak for American children? The facts that "Half of U.S. children get no early childhood education, and we have no national strategy to increase enrollment," "More than a quarter of U.S. children have a chronic health condition, such as obesity or asthma, threatening their capacity to learn," "More than 22 percent of U.S. children lived in poverty in 2010, up from about 17 percent in 2007," and "More than half of U.S. postsecondary students drop out without receiving a degree."
4. Also, Blow would like you to know that American "students regularly come to school hungry because they are not getting enough to eat at home," and "The saddest are the children who cry when we get out early for a snow day because they won’t get lunch."

Do you follow the line of reasoning there? China and India are about to dominate the future workforce by producing more workers in the youngest demographic than we have in our total workforce. The solution is to make sure our children can do well in school by using government entitlement programs to combat hunger and poverty among our children and to hire more teachers.

Blow's statistics are impressive and should alarm us all. Blow's reasoning from them is insane.

The nations that he says are about to dominate us (China and India) have HIGHER rates of childhood poverty and hunger than we do. By quite a bit. At least, that's what UNICEF says (not exactly a right-wing group).

Also, these nations that are about to dominate us have HIGHER student-teacher ratios than we do. Ours (sitting at about 14) is less than half as much as India's and is slightly better than China's.

How are China and India about to dominate the world economy and leave the USA in the dust? Not by having more effective government handouts. Not by having more teachers in their schools. China and India are about to surpass us simply by having more children.

American society hates children. It is sacred to us to make sure that we can delay childbearing, prevent childbearing, murder children before they are born, and normalize and promote sexual relationships that have no hope of producing children. With each passing generation we have fewer and fewer children.

Charles Blow and his party are the number-one reason why.

Our future is not hungry for more government welfare. Our future is not hungry for more liberal indoctrination. Our future is starving all right, but it is starving for functional family life and an embrace and promotion of historic traditional parenting as a blessing to our society.

Why I Am Not A Libertarian

The line between Libertarianism and non-Libertarian Conservatism has grown indefinite during my lifetime. What was originally a watchword of the Democrat Party—the slogan of John L. O'Sullivan's The United States Magazine and Democratic Review magazine, "The best government is that which governs least"—has now become the prevailing slogan of the Republican Party. This slogan can be found as the battle cry of limited-government Conservatives or Libertarians, but taken at face value it is necessarily an Anarchist sentiment. If the least government is the best, then it logically follows that no government AT all is the best government OF all.

Of course, most of the people who wield this slogan don't really mean it—they stop somewhere far short of anarchy. They mean to say that government would govern better if there were less of it than there is now. The major problem is that, while they don't really mean that government governs best when it governs least, too many of these people THINK that they really do mean that. A desperate need exists within the general landscape of political conservatism for all of us to think carefully toward the development of a consistent and comprehensive philosophy of government. For those of us who are Christians, our careful thought must also be prayerful thought, and the philosophy of government that we adopt needs to arise out of statements that the Bible has made about government.

I'm thinking that I might devote some time and some space on this blog to this topic. I will examine what the Bible says about government and interact with the major political systems of our day, hoping that we can all arrive at a better-informed and more carefully-developed concept of Christian citizenship than we might have at present.

Today, I would like to consider Libertarianism

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy accurately defines Libertarianism as "the moral view that [people] initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things." The only justification for denying full liberty to any individual person, according to Libertarianism, is in order to protect the liberty of other people. This concept of self-ownership is the foundational concept of Libertarianism without which other Libertarian political convictions are incoherent. I would encourage you to read the entire Stanford article. It is excellent and well-sourced.

I disagree with Libertarianism. I offer the following as my primary objections against this political theory:

1. As a Christian, I consider the foundational premise of Libertarianism to be a form of sinful rebellion against God. To state that individuals initially and fully own themselves is to fail to acknowledge that we exist as creations of a Creator. God is our Owner. He has authority over us. This truth is really the starting point of the gospel—if God is not my Owner, and if He does not have authority over me, then I have very little need for the gospel and very little reason to hear it.

2. As a Christian, I believe that the best government is that which governs according to the scope of authority and the purposes that have been given to human government by God. The Bible is quite explicit on this point:

   Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due to them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. (Romans 13:1-7, NASB)

   This can hardly be construed as a Libertarian manifesto. It is a statement of support for the Roman Empire! It speaks of "subjection" as something that is "necessary" from God's perspective. Individual liberty appears in this treatise absolutely nowhere. The purpose of government, according to the New Testament, is not for the protection of individual liberty. Rather, God has authorized secular governments for the purpose that those who "do what is good" might "have praise from" their government, but that those who "do what is evil" will have cause to "be afraid" of the "sword" borne by the state who, on God's behalf, is "an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil."

   Biblically, it is the purpose of government to encourage good behavior and to punish bad behavior. This purpose is derived from the One who has delegated authority to human government, from God.

   If this is the purpose of government, does that purpose exist across the entire scope of human life, or are there things that are beyond the purview of governmental authority as invested in government by God? I believe that there are limitations to the scope of governmental authority. In the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, Jesus specifically commanded His servants not to attempt to uproot the tares from the wheat field. The field, Jesus said, represents the world. The wheat are the Christians and the tares are those who are not. Jesus explicitly commands that judgment upon people for rejecting Christ not take place until the Final Judgment.

   This, the most important execution of justice, is not something that God is willing to delegate to anyone else. I'm sure that God has many reasons for insisting upon performing this kind of judgment Himself, but the concern listed in the parable is that "while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them."

   It is this parable and other passages like it that make me an adherent to Roger Williams's theory of "The Two Tables of the Law." God has not authorized government to execute justice in matters of human beings' relationship with God. God will tend to that Himself. Rather, God has authorized human governments to execute justice in matters of human beings' relationships with one another. For this reason, I support unbridled religious liberty. The concern given in the Parable of the Wheat and Tares has proven in history to be well-taken: Governments that enforce religious conformity have, without fail, been governments that have persecuted Christians who share my theological convictions. No government should ever try to enforce a good relationship with God.

   Governments do rightfully exist to regulate human relationships. Business relationships, family relationships, and community relationships require governmental restraint upon the innate wickedness of human beings. The governmental justice that comes into these relationships, being mediated by fallen human beings, is imperfect—sometimes horrendously so. The human author of Romans 13 was all-too-aware of this, having been wrongly imprisoned and brutally punished more times than we dare count. Nevertheless, he knew, as God does, that imperfect human justice, inferior as it is to the ideals of divine perfection, is still far superior to anarchy.

   It is within this scope of authority—intercourse among human beings—that government can fulfill its purpose of rewarding the doing of good and punishing the doing of wrong. This biblical philosophy stands in marked contrast against the Libertarian philosophy of protecting individual rights.

3. As a Christian, I recognize Libertarianism's exaltation of individual liberty as spiritually unsophisticated. According to the Bible, this kind of liberty is actually slavery. Whoever deprives a person of the liberty of being a Crystal Meth addict is PRESERVING that person's individual liberty, not taking it away. Libertarianism, in its most consistent forms, fails to understand this.

   The contrast between the biblical concept of liberty and the Libertarian theory is striking. Libertarianism presumes that liberty is the natural state of mankind, and that people only lose their liberty when someone intervenes. Christianity presumes that bondage is the natural state of mankind, and that people only find liberty when someone intervenes.

4. As a human being, Libertarianism seems to me a hopelessly naïve philosophy of human liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Libertarianism fails to acknowledge that the liberties most precious to most of us are inherently social in nature rather than individualistic. Among all of the other liberties that I desire, I want the liberty to live in a community where my children can walk the streets in safety. I desire the liberty to choose an environment for my family in which we will be exposed to good role models who are trying to be moral people. I desire for my children to be able to choose mates from among a pool of peers who have at least seen something of a functioning home. Libertarianism does not acknowledge these as liberties, because they are not INDIVIDUAL liberties, but are instead liberties tied to the collective state of society.

   Consider, for example, divorce. The Libertarian approach to divorce must simply be that people, being full owners of themselves, have the unabrogated right to determine that they no longer wish to be married. The Christian approach to marriage is far different. According to the Bible (1 Corinthians 7:4), in marriage each individual is owned by his or her spouse, and together they are obligated to God who has joined them together (Mark 10:9). Both of these concepts—spousal ownership and divine obligation—directly contradict the fundamental precepts of Libertarianism.

   Furthermore, as the divorce rate skyrockets (and a consistent Libertarian can only rejoice that people are exercising their individual liberties), the fabric of society is being affected by these fundamental changes. The community is different when marriage is no longer capable of maintaining order in the families of a community. But I have to live in a community somewhere. I have no choice about that. And if I have no liberty to join with likeminded people to create the sort of community that is most beneficial to us—which unavoidably means curtailing the liberty of other individuals within the community to do things that damage the collective good of our community—then the most valuable and precious elements of my individual liberty have been stolen from me. But Libertarianism expressly asserts that I do not have that liberty—it does not even acknowledge that kind of liberty as important, although obviously it is in real life. This is the point at which Libertarianism is so naïve.

5. As a moral philosopher, I consider Libertarianism to be a ridiculously reductionistic approach to morality. Libertarianism is not the alternative to the legislation of morality; it is among the most inflexible and Totalitarian moral philosophies in existence. Libertarianism takes a single moral concept—that it is morally good for human beings to be free to make decisions for themselves—and makes it the trump card over all other moral concepts. Liberty is not merely good under Libertarianism; it is the summum bonum, and Libertarianism legislates this moral viewpoint upon everyone. Essentially, all other moral concepts cease to exist in Libertarianism, except as points of internal deliberation for the individual. Libertarianism requires that all of society conform to this ordering of moral principles in practice. Talk about cramming your morality down someone else's throat!

   Is morality really this simple? Is it always the most moral thing to maximize individualistic liberty? You need not be a Christian to suspect that something is missing here, but if you are a Christian, you must admit at this point that Libertarian morality is strangely at odds with the central tenets of your faith.

For these reasons I am not a Libertarian. Although I have no idealistic supposition that human government will lead us to utopia or ever be anything other than a stopgap measure imperfectly restraining evil until the day that all will be set right, I do believe that government is, on the whole, an important blessing given to the world by God. I'm all in favor of making it the greatest blessing that it can be. Future posts on that are upcoming, I hope.

Why Condemnations of Last Saturday's Political Conclave of Evangelical Leaders Are Dangerous

In the "Magazine of Evangelical…" um…something (Christianity Today), David Neff has taken Paul & Nancy Pressler and around 150 other evangelical leaders to task for holding a meeting last Saturday at the Pressler ranch in an effort to unite behind a single conservative GOP candidate in this year's primary elections. The title of Neff's essay was "Why Last Saturday's Political Conclave of Evangelical Leaders Was Dangerous."

Neff's piece represents well a rising sentiment among a new generation of those who attend Evangelical churches. Popularity, however, does not always correlate well with sound thinking.

Here are, as best as I can discern them, the major points of Neff's attack:

1. The meeting somehow went beyond "political action" to address "the social, economic, and moral threats to a healthy society" (which Neff affirms as something he would support) and transgressed instead into "playing kingmaker and powerbroker." The people at the meeting apparently did this by "conspiring to throw their weight behind a single evangelical-friendly candidate."
2. This is a bad thing, according to Neff, because it feeds "the widespread perception that evangelicalism's main identifying feature is right-wing political activism focused on abortion and homosexuality."
3. Please note a key facet of Neff's argument: It isn't that these brothers and sisters went about doing these things wrongly (selecting the wrong candidate, following the wrong procedure, inviting the wrong people, etc.), but that they did it at all.

I submit to you that Neff's essay represents a nonsensical halfway covenant of sorts, the main appeal of which is its vague feeling of protest, essentially against the personalities involved.

Before engaging in point-by-point analysis, we ought to take a moment to ask ourselves what really happened at the ranch in Brenham (and I was not in attendance). A group of Christians (not a church) gathered. They share a common viewpoint about what are "the social, economic, and moral threats to a healthy society." They believe that the outcome of this year's presidential election will be relevant to those concerns. Having that belief, they found themselves motivated toward "political action." Strategically, they determined that the wisest political action to address their concerns would be to select a candidate whom they could support in the primary elections. Their process for deciding which candidate to support was to conduct a ballot vote. Everyone who came to the meeting came voluntarily. No one in the meeting is in any position to coerce anyone else at the meeting to abide by the decision.

OK, so somewhere in that preceding paragraph, we have to find something that makes it all "dangerous" in the manner that Neff has alleged.

Neff's first allegation is that the meeting went beyond "political action" and transgressed into the realm of "playing kingmaker and powerbroker." How, I wonder? The substance and procedure of the meeting was no different—not one iota different—from what happened at the Iowa Caucuses or the New Hampshire Primaries. A group of likeminded people (in the case of Iowa or New Hampshire, Republicans), believing that they should, for strategic reasons, consolidate their support behind a single candidate for an upcoming election (in this case, the general election in November), hold a vote (or a series of votes, in the case of Iowa) to decide which candidate will be the one for which they will campaign and vote in the days leading up to the general election.

I suppose there is a way in which the Iowa caucuses are, indeed, instances of kingmaking and powerbrokering. The only political processes that would not run afoul of this characterization would be, I guess, political processes that never result in decisions.

Neff must LOVE Congress.

Is this process something beneath Christian individuals? Does it soil them to engage in it? If so, then we need to disavow politics altogether, and certainly we need to refrain from going to our individual polling places and casting our ballots whenever the primary elections take place in our respective states. The substance of what happened in Iowa and what happened in Brenham is absolutely indistinguishable, except for size. And if such strategic politicking is out-of-bounds for Christians, what "political action" is left over for Neff to use in his "urgent" endeavors to address the "threats" that bother him?

There's nothing out of the ordinary about the process of this political meeting, or even about the role it plays in the larger process. Neff's argument against this particular political process can hardly be anything other than an attack on political strategy in general. Neff's argument is an Anabaptist one. He should go the whole way, for the sake of consistency, and abandon secular politics altogether. I admire the Anabaptists. Although I am not convinced of their position, it is internally coherent, makes a good argument, can make some biblical case for itself, and has a certain winsome appeal to this sometimes-idealist. Neff's position is remarkable for having none of those things. His halfway covenant—that Christians should join the rest of the nation in the political process, but must do so in a more foolish, less organized fashion than everybody else—is untenable.

Or, perhaps Neff isn't opposed to such political strategy and organization, per se (and I suspect that this is the case), but is simply reacting negatively toward the particular people involved in this meeting. If so, then he should have made it clear that he was writing a personal attack rather than an attempt at a reasonable philosophy of Christian political involvement. I think we're all at the place where we have to ask ourselves, if Rick Warren had hosted this meeting at his home in California to consolidate evangelical support behind a candidate promising to wipe out AIDS, would Neff have written a demeaning attack piece or would he have asked for time off to attend?

The second grievance in the article is that such meetings (or the existence of such people?) feed what is, in Neff's estimation, a bad perception of evangelicalism: "that evangelicalism's main identifying feature is right-wing political activism focused on abortion and homosexuality." We don't have any reliable indication that abortion and homosexuality were the only items on the agenda in Brenham. Indeed, another critique from a more widely respected press organ flatly asserted the opposite today: That the reason for this meeting was explicitly to go beyond abortion and homosexuality and to meddle in economics and foreign policy and the like.

French's analysis has to be accurate. If the question were simply about abortion and homosexuality, then there would be no need for a Brenham meeting. The people who went to Brenham are all in agreement already about abortion and homosexuality. They had no need to confer about that. This was a meeting to choose WHICH pro-life, pro-marriage candidate (among several) would be the better candidate based upon their differences in OTHER areas.

So, Neff is attacking a meeting that was about neither abortion nor homosexuality, claiming that the mere existence of such a meeting reinforces a perception that evangelicals are concerned, above all else, about abortion and homosexuality. Let's ask ourselves, is this "perception" something that we might categorize as a reasoned observation or an unthinking prejudice? The question matters a great deal. If it is the former, then the fault lies with evangelicals. If it is the latter, then the fault lies with those who hold the prejudice.

I submit to you that it is the latter. By any reasonable measure (where evangelical money goes, where evangelical time goes, what evangelical children wind up doing with their lives, etc.), political engagement is far from the main identifying feature of evangelicalism. The idea that this is the primary feature of evangelicalism is nothing more than a prejudice. The funny thing about prejudices is that they require very little in the way of evidence in order to survive. Neff's speculation that evangelicals would not suffer from such humiliations if Paul Pressler would discontinue such meetings is simply that—speculation. I think it is naïve speculation at that.

In point of fact, the grave embarrassment for evangelicalism these days is Rob Bell and Mike Licona, not Paul Pressler. It is the fact that the word "evangelical" has come to mean nothing substantive. It is the fact that so many rank-and-file evangelicals have very little idea what the Bible says, have only the vaguest notions of what they believe, and have very little firm intention of living according to any of it should it become uncomfortable to them. It is the fact that most evangelicals, if they encountered the rich young ruler today, would commission a self-study immediately after the encounter to try to determine why they weren't reaching the leaders of the next generation. To suggest that evangelicalism's public-relations ills are the fault of Paul Pressler et al is wishful thinking.

Christians need not apologize for being involved in the political process. Christians need not apologize for trying to do so wisely, so long as they are doing so honestly. Churches shouldn't be endorsing particular candidates in this primary election, in my opinion, but individual Christians citizens will be, for a few seconds on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, the sovereign rulers of this nation. As such, they are responsible before the Lord for everything the Bible teaches us about being good, godly rulers, so far as their influence reaches. I'm thankful that there are people who take that responsibility seriously. If a Christian can honorably vote, there's nothing wrong with campaigning. If you're going to campaign, there's nothing wrong with campaigning in an organized fashion. To pretend otherwise is to demand that Christians participate in the electoral process, but always in a passive fashion. David Neff's opinion notwithstanding, I think THAT is a dangerous outcome.

Robert Jeffress Endorses Rick Perry

By now perhaps you already know that Robert Jeffress has endorsed Rick Perry. Rick Perry is the Governor of Texas and is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Robert Jeffress is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. I believe that Dr. Jeffress's endorsement was a mistake.

I like Robert Jeffress and have admired his unflinching courage. He and I agree about many things. Also, I find that there is much to admire and appreciate about the Perry candidacy. I am not finding fault with the man, and I am not finding fault with his particular choice of candidate.

First, I do not believe that this is an election in which pastors should be endorsing a candidate. I am not one of those who would say that pastors should never endorse political candidates. If Adolf Hitler were running against Billy Graham, I hope that I would be one of those with the courage not only to express a personal opinion but also to lead my church to take sides, and decisively so. Sometimes it may be appropriate for a pastor and a church to make a candidate endorsement.

This just isn't that time.

Second, I do not believe that Jeffress's reason is the right reason to use for endorsing a candidate. If Nebuchadnezzar was God's choice to lead Babylon, if Cyrus was God's choice to lead Persia, and if Nero was "God's agent" as the Emperor of Rome (Romans 13), then I don't see how we can declare that God couldn't possibly be supporting Mitt Romney over Rick Perry (or even, just possibly, Barack Hussein Obama over the entire GOP field?). God does what God does for God's own reasons.

I don't see myself voting for Mitt Romney, but neither do I believe that we ought to have any religious test for office, either formal or informal. If I were to impose such a test, I imagine that I would be throwing out some baby with the bathwater. I don't know how much confidence the New Testament leads us to have in the eternal salvation of the average person who is "religious without going to church," and yet that was the way that Ronald Reagan described himself (and was the obvious practice of his life).

Figuring out how to live and to lead as a Christian in these crazy times is often difficult. Dr. Jeffress is a thoughtful man, and I'm sure that he has given careful thought and prayer to his decision. Although I think that he heard wrongly during his prayer time and that he has made the wrong decision, I feel many of the same struggles and do respect him greatly still. Nevertheless, I would encourage my readers to refrain from making political endorsements like this one except in the most extreme circumstances.

Chairs and Benches Alike Seat Errant Souls

We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable.

So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.

-Vatican I

By this document in 1870 the Roman Catholic Church formally affirmed what it had informally embraced long beforehand: the belief that the Pope, when he speaks ex cathedra (literally, "from the chair"), speaks infallibly. This doctrine was not received universally even among self-identified Roman Catholics (e.g., Hans Küng). Of course, Dissenters have rejected the notion of papal infallibility for as long as there have been Dissenters. To be a Dissenter is, ipso facto, to reject papal infallibility. Martin Luther warned of Roman Catholic apologists who "with insolent juggling of words…would persuade us that the pope, whether he be a bad man or a good man, cannot err in matters of faith," in his "Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate."

Asserting infallibility for one's leaders initially seems to be a strong position from which to lead. It stifles dissent, and dissent is rarely productive or efficient while it is actually ongoing. But in the long run, infallibility cripples leadership rather than enabling it. Among the most necessary tasks of leadership is the recognition of past mistakes and their correction. One could adopt the Mormon solution and just presume that nobody is paying close attention—Mormons have an office of living prophet, supposedly delivering authoritative revelations from God, which subsequent prophets then contradict or rescind entirely. If Harold Camping can get away with what he's done, what, in comparison, is a little difference of opinion over whether the moon is inhabited by Quakers?

But the Roman Catholic Church is too large, too well organized, and too closely watched to get away with such tactics. Modern-day popes and priests have to make certain that their teachings comply with former ex cathedra teachings. Therefore, there is no hope for Roman Catholics to correct their errors regarding such things as the immaculate conception or the bodily assumption of Mary unless they correct the error of having embraced papal infallibility first. Even if they come to be 100% aware of having departed from the truth in these matters, they cannot fix what is broken so long as Vatican I's error on papal infallibility shackles them to an errant past.

And yet, harmful as the doctrine of papal infallibility may be, it has done far less danger in recent years than the even more ludicrous notion of judicial infallibility, styled under the name of stare decisis or "precedent." Because of the notion of stare decisis, our court system struggles to right itself when it makes grievous errors.

Of course, judges and legal theorists are like neither Roman Catholics nor Mormons. They do not believe that judges are actually infallible, guided by God in all of their decisions to perfect and timeless wisdom. They know that judicial decisions are often wrong, and occasionally they find a way to reverse themselves. An interesting paper available on the Internet details some of the situations in which the United States Supreme Court has abandoned stare decisis and has overruled its own rulings (see here).

Reversals of "settled law" are, nonetheless, rare. Even the most strident originalists (like Clarence Thomas, maybe…contrast Scalia's characterization of Thomas with Thomas's rejoinder) often assert that legal decisions ought not to be overturned merely because they are wrong. Thoughtful discussions of the doctrine of stare decisis usually quote at some time Justice Brandeis's 1932 dissent in Burnet v. Coronodo Oil & Gas, which reveals poignantly the flawed theory behind stare decisis:

Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right…This is commonly true even where the error is a matter of serious concern.

So, the regnant philosophy of our judicial system is that it is better to be consistently wrong than to be inconsistent in order to be right. The structure of our judicial system is designed in opposition toward one of the most fundamental (and most demonstrably true) tenets of Christianity: The fact that men err and must often repent of their errors.

Consider, as foremost example, the 1973 case Roe v. Wade. When you hear a Supreme Court nominee answering any question about stare decisis, you can just substitute "Roe v. Wade" for "stare decisis" to get the true intent of the question. The pro-abortion crowd do not want to have the debate about whether Roe was right constitutionally or morally; they just want to have a debate over whether it is "settled." For those who think like Brandeis, the important thing is that cases like this one be "settled" even if they are not "settled right."

I believe that there are at least two flaws in Brandeis's thinking.

1. Brandeis overestimates the degree to which judicial "settling" accomplishes societal "settling."

   If anything, the Roe v Wade decision has accomplished a massive unsettling of American society. Most of the presidential elections since 1980 have turned to some degree upon the unsettling and polarization of American society that Roe caused. When a court makes a political ruling, usurping the legislative function along the way, and then tries to lock in its gains by appeal to stare decisis, the result is to undermine public confidence in the justice system and to unsettle society.

   What is soothing to society is a feeling of trust that those who wield the power of government are committed to doing the right thing, even if doing so should require enduring the embarrassment of correcting one's past mistakes or might inconvenience one's political agenda.

2. "Settled" is more important than "settled right" to whom?

   Certainly, the victim is more concerned about a ruling being right than being settled. The cause of justice is served better by right decisions than by mere stability. When "settled" is not "settled right," then it is nothing more nor less than obstinacy. Obstinacy in rulers is a key ingredient in the fomenting of rebellion.

   This kind of obstinacy is recognized as poor leadership in every area of human endeavor except jurisprudence. When leaders don't have to revisit their decisions, they feel peace. When those who suffer under bad decisions have no hope that their leaders will revisit their mistakes, they feel at least despair, sometimes anger, and occasionally determination to effect change.

Whether in matters of faith or in matters of law, irreversible rulings are incompatible with liberty. Unless the one delivering the rulings is indeed infallible, irreversible rulings are also contrary to justice and progress. Whether it is the chair of St. Peter or the bench of John Jay, the fallen and fallible human souls who sit in them ought to have enough humility to realize that sometimes they need to be corrected.

There's the Birth Certificate

For a while now, a large billboard just south of I-635 on US-75 in Dallas has asked the question, "Where's The Birth Certificate?" I'm curious whether the billboard is already down, now that President Obama has released his long-form birth certificate today (see article in the New York Times) and the question has been answered once-and-for-all.

I agree with Richard Land (see video) that, for a long time now, it has been irrational to maintain that President Obama is a Muslim (Christianity is obviously the religious faith that he has chosen as his to ignore) or was not born in Hawaii. Such theories belong in the same category as those alleging that President Bush plotted the 9/11 attacks or those alleging that President Clinton was the kingpin of a drug ring operating out of Mena, AR.

I disagree, on the other hand, with the suggestion from the White House that the topic itself is a trivial one or is somehow silly. That the White House would say so is, I think, evidence of what I consider to be one of the grave problems facing our system of governance today: A disregard for our Constitution.

Trivial and silly people involved in this? Absolutely. Trivial and silly theories concocted? You bet. A trivial and silly topic unworthy of discussion? Not on your life.

That the President of the United States be a natural-born citizen is a constitutional requirement. Most of us have presumed for a long time that President Obama meets that qualification, and that presumption has now been vindicated. Nevertheless, even for we citizens who did not doubt that President Obama is constitutionally qualified to serve in his office, this has been an eye-opening journey, revealing to us all that no clear procedure exists for making certain that presidential candidates meet this constitutional requirement.

Article II of the Constitution of the United States simply cannot be followed unless somebody somewhere inspects a candidate's birth certificate. This is true not only with regard to the Natural Born Citizen clause, but is also true with regard to the age requirement specified in Article II (in order to be president, a person must be at least thirty-five years old). I have to produce a birth certificate to get a passport or a Texas drivers license, but not to be elected President? Even the presentation of a birth certificate is not enough to demonstrate compliance with the residency requirement in Article II. In order to serve as President of the United States, a person must have resided within the United States for the preceding fourteen years. How, at present, is this constitutional requirement verified and enforced?

Shouldn't presidential candidates be vetted as having met the constitutional requirements for the office before they run? The Constitution stipulates clear requirements; we have no procedures in place—and no plan to create them—to implement these constitutional requirements. A candidate is not required to document status as a natural born citizen in order to run for President. You, as a citizen, do not have standing to request that any candidate demonstrate eligibility under Article II as a candidate for the office of President.

The Natural Born Citizen Clause of Article II occupies the same category as the Tenth Amendment—verbiage in our Constitution which our government has no interest in treating seriously. We pay lip-service to our Constitution, but we ignore it at will. Why did President Obama demonstrate that he is a natural born citizen? Not because he had to, but because he chose to. Have we complied with the Constitution, or have we not? To too many people in this country, that question is not important enough to ask if it gets in the way of the current mood in Washington. This entire "birther" debacle, which should never have been possible and could easily have been ended in 2008, has been enabled and fueled by that fact alone. That is the real problem, and it is not trivial or silly.

Personal Transportation Reform

The federal government must immediately adopt legislation to provide a reliable, late-model automobile for every U.S. citizen and resident.

1. To do so would create jobs. Imagine how many Americans could go to work to produce the new cars that the government would have to purchase!

2. It would help to reduce the deficit. After all, we now own General Motors. Anything that increases car sales by the government car company would necessarily bring in lots of money to reduce the deficit.

3. You should hear the sad stories of Americans who do not have reliable transportation! These people are stranded. They can't go to the grocery store. You just can't survive in most of America today without a dependable car.

4. Health care depends upon it. All of the insurance in the world is worthless if you can't get to your doctor. Also, we're having to pay for the unnecessary utilization of ambulances and helicopters by people who can't get to the hospital on their own because they don't have a reliable car. For some of these people whose health problems make it difficult for them to drive themselves, it would likely save us a great deal of money if we also provided them with a full-time chauffeur.

5. Providing a new car for everyone is vital to Interstate Commerce. I long ago lost count of the number of people seeking financial assistance from our church who couldn't keep a job because they didn't have dependable personal transportation. The productivity of the nation is hampered by our heartless system that denies personal transportation to millions of people.

6. Automobile costs have skyrocketed out of control! Some vehicles cost over $50,000 these days. People are plunged into debt just to try to provide transportation for their families. The government could buy in bulk and get the same low, low costs that they achieve in defense contracts.

7. A car for every American represents the culmination of the dream that our parents and grandparents had for us.

All of the cars should be blue. Dark blue. Turn signals will operate only to the left.

Great Moments in Fomenting "Necessary Change"

1. Their numbers had been declining, they perceived difficulties in their attempts to engage the younger generations, and they worried that their brand was too regionally connected with the South and could not continue to fulfill their national and international ambitions without modification—all of these factors motivated the "experts" at Coca-Cola in 1985 to abandon the drink formula that they had sold for a century and to introduce the now-infamous New Coke.

2. Although he had won the ratings war for the 11:30 Eastern television time slot for twelve straight years, Jay Leno recently learned that "experts" in charge at NBC had determined to abandon a formula that had been successful since the days of Jack Paar and to bring unprecedented changes to late-night television.

3. "Change We Can Believe In"

The moral of the stories: Beware experts selling change. Caveat Emptor.

In Half-Hearted Defense of Harry Reid

We're so childish in the way that we deal with racial issues in this country.

Race ought not to be a factor in politics. Race is a factor in politics. I don't cast my vote because of a candidate's race. Many people do.

Because so many people will be influenced by race in casting a ballot—because race indeed is a factor in politics—people who analyze politics are going to analyze the racial factors in politics. It is just that simple.

I guarantee you that Harry Reid voted for Obama. Were I a betting man, I'd bet money that Harry Reid would vote for Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Mike Tyson or [insert African-American person here] before he would vote for any Republican. The subject matter is not Harry Reid's personal feelings about the candidates.

If he's opining that Obama's light skin color and refined diction make him more electable than Black candidates who lack those features, then Reid is analyzing OTHER PEOPLE'S racism, and not demonstrating his own. Reid's having to apologize is silly; calls for his resignation are outright ridiculous.

I think that even Michael Steele and my own Senator John Cornyn probably even think the same thing (although each is calling for Reid's resignation). They've just been overcome by the temptation to engage in a little tit-for-tat. Certainly, any Republican who uttered anything vaguely resembling Reid's comments would have been interred in Guantanamo already (Remember President Carter's "analysis" of Joe Wilson's comments?).

But two wrongs don't make a right, and somebody has to show the way forward in race relations in the US. Democrats are obviously and demonstrably incapable of doing so. The more opportunistic that Republicans become in their attempts to hasten the inevitable Ides of March for Democrat control of the Hill, the less optimistic I become that they, either, are willing to lift race-rhetoric in this country to someplace higher.

A Great Speaker for the 2010 SBC Annual Meeting

Today our prayers are with Johnny Hunt as he fights for victory over cancer, which we are confident the Lord will grant him.

I also want to put in a suggestion for the development of the program for the 2010 Southern Baptist Convention. I would love to see us have Representative Bart Stupak (D-Michigan) to speak in a prominent time-slot in our annual meeting in Orlando. Doing so would give us a chance to express our appreciation for this heroic man and to hear words of encouragement from him in the pursuit of justice for the least in our society.

As an added benefit, it might slow down some of the gadflies who have falsely and derisively claimed that the SBC is nothing more than an affiliate of the GOP (none of whom ever seem to have problems with the 125-year monogamy that the Democrat Party enjoyed with the SBC).

If you don't know much about Bart Stupak, you might peruse this excellent article in the New York Times.

Ignored Honor Killings

I have very little to add to this excellent bit of analysis other than to extend my deepest sympathies to those family members who give a rip about Noor Amaleki. This, of course, will not be classified as a "hate crime," since it is an accepted dogma in the United States of America that only conservative Christians are capable of hate. This, on the other hand, is mere multiculturalism.

And I'm sure that somehow, someway, Israel and George W. Bush are at fault.

Health Care Reform and Religious Imperatives

Liberal pastors are pulling out all of the stops in their advocacy for socialized medicine. I was recently reading The Houston Chronicle's article concerning a group of liberal pastors being used by the Democrat Party to push for President Obama's beleaguered health care initiative.

The messages from these pastors, like most messages of liberal economic policies, confuse a basic ethical principle: For me to be generous with my money is laudatory and most Christian; for me to be generous with somebody else's money is neither, but is mere theft and is condemned in the Bible. The generous Christian impulse of being generous with our own money led Christians throughout our nation to start hospitals and other health care initiative in days gone by. What passes today for the "moral imperative" of "health care reform" in the plans of President Obama can be entirely summarized as covetousness for the resources of others.

Obama Solution for Disorderly Conduct

The White House has announced a new proposed solution for dealing with people guilty of disorderly conduct—Get 'em drunk.

That always improves people's behavior, right? So President Obama plans to have Dr. Henry Louis Gates and Sgt James Crowder of the Cambridge PD over to the White House for a brewski. Yeah…that'll help them be more civil toward one another. Who knows? Maybe they'll grab a brew and discuss their view of theology. Maybe somebody in the trio will get saved by the miraculous Holy Spirit power of fermented drink.

In other news, the new Middle East Peace Plan reportedly involves slipping some PCP to Bebe Netanyahu and Salam Fayyad.

...and Jessica Simpson Thinks Tony Romo Is the Greatest Quarterback Ever

 

 

American Bar Association Gives Sotomayor High Rating (HT: Fox News)

 

 

The Young Conservatives Anthem

On Fair Shares in Taxation

I had a conversation yesterday with someone who runs a successful business. This person employs around forty people. His is not the largest business in his small town—not even in the top five. Wherever you live, your local school district employs more people, maintains larger facilities, and spends more money than does this person's business. He lives modestly in a middle-class neighborhood in his suburban town.

As required by our current tax code, this person pays his taxes four times a year. Every three months he sends around $300,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. Today he will file his tax return and will pay any amount not covered by his quarterly estimated tax payments. That amount for this year will be $900,000! Please remember, this does not represent his entire tax burden, but only considers the cost of his federal income taxes.

Considering these numbers, I think it appropriate to ask the following questions:

1. Is he yet paying his fair share? Is he patriotic enough yet? Standard socialist philippics attack people like this for being oppressive toward the poor. Somehow he is considered something other than the group labeled as "working people" although he works far more than forty hours every week. He is a generous giver. I'm thankful for his gifts to the local church, but I also know that he has contributed to local, state, and international charities.

   A large percentage of people who live in his neighborhood give nothing to charity. They pay no income taxes. They may drive more elaborate cars or live in more expensive houses or have a more expensive cable TV package. Some of them have overextended themselves in subprime mortgages to purchase homes they could not afford (although the Dallas-Fort Worth region hasn't had as much a problem with that phenomenon as some other regions of the nation). Yet he pays nearly $2 million in federal income taxes and they pay nothing. And then they complain about the greedy rich people who stick it to the common man.

   Is this fair?

2. Is this good for the country? Is it good stewardship? Looking at the numbers above, it is easy to determine that, for every one of this man's employees, there's an amount of money equivalent to her salary that is being paid to the federal government in income taxes. Do you want to talk about creating jobs? Were he not paying federal income taxes, he could nearly double his workforce.

   Rather than paying employees in the region, his money will go to Washington, D.C.

   Have you ever been to our nation's capitol? I have a recommended outing for you. Journey to Washington, D.C. Get up early on a weekday morning. Turn on the news and look at the traffic report. See how many cars are on the Beltway. Then go get an early spot on a bench on the Mall or in Lafayette Park. Take a couple of hours and watch the unending throng of suits and ties streaming into those government buildings and lobbying firms. Imagine the salaries. Then, when you've tallied it all up in your mind, remember that this vast army of bureaucrats produces not a single product. The entire organism is, technically speaking, parasitic.

   That vast economy in the Washington, D.C., area is funded by money taken OUT of your town. No doubt, that's a good deal for those people in D.C. Is it good for you? Is it good for our country?

3. Finally, I ask you to try to consider objectively this question: Is this nation still the best place to find the opportunity to start a business? Our wages are high. Our taxes are high. The chances that your business will be sued in some kind of product liability lawsuit or trumped-up employment discrimination lawsuit or worker injury lawsuit or environmental complaint is higher than in some other places.

   We have some things going for us. You generally don't have to bribe people in order to do business in our nation. The United States of America contains some very nice places to live. All of the modern conveniences are at our fingertips. And America still stands for some things that are noble and worthwhile. I'm proud to be an American, and I don't want to sell this great nation short at all.

   I also believe that it is unethical and in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ for anyone not to pay every penny of taxes required by the law. Whether God approves of the nation sending him such a bill or not, God expects this guy to write that $900,000 check.

   But looking solely at the question of whether our nation is a good business environment, I think that the massive flood of jobs to the Pacific Rim is an ominous indicator that we may be poisoning our own well. Granted, most of those who own businesses in the United States are patriotic people who want to live here and do their share. It would take something pretty traumatic and life-altering to convince them to go anywhere else.

   But, then, the act of signing your name to a $900,000 check? That's got to be a pretty traumatic experience.

My degree is in Church History. I know very little about economics. So, take my musings about these matters with a large grain of salt. But, if there's anything valuable for you to take out of this little essay, perhaps it is this: You should be extra considerate and nice to your employer today. He just might be in a really bad mood.

Kudos to President Obama

We are receiving reports that the United States Navy has killed three pirates and rescued Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama (see Fox News report here). Navy SEAL snipers reportedly shot and killed all of the pirates holding Phillips and then brought him back aboard his ship.

President Obama has done the right thing. The next right thing that he should do is to go on television and announce that any piracy inflicted upon an American flagged vessel will receive precisely the same treatment.

How do we determine that this is the right thing to do? Pacifists will not be pleased. And indeed, there is a place for pacifism of a sort. Had First Baptist Church of Farmersville organized an armed band to sail out to the Somali coast and execute the pirates, then we would have done wrong. But government stands in a different role than do individual believers. Those who do evil are to be afraid of the government, "for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who practices wrath on the one who practices evil." (Romans 13:4b) The purpose for which God has ordained government to bear this sword of warfare and capital punishment is for "the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right." (1 Peter 2:14b)

Did the United States of America have authority in this matter? Yes, for the Maersk Alabama is an American flagged vessel.

Were the captain and crew of the Maersk Alabama people "who do right" who are worthy of governmental "praise" and protection? Yes. They were doing their jobs. Incidentally, the Alabama was carrying 400 containers of food as relief supplies destined for Mombasa, Kenya. That's a pretty noble purpose, but any person pursuing any worthy line of work would be equally worthy of the praise and protection of the government.

Were the pirates "evildoers" worthy of meeting the governmental "sword" of "punishment" as they did? Yes. They are thieves and extortionists and murderers.

So, President Obama did exactly the right thing, and having done good, he deserves praise just as much as he owes it to innocents and those who do good under his domain.