A Season of Opportunity for Conservative Democrats?

From what little I know about politics, now seems to me an ideal time for moral conservatives remaining within the Democrat Party to press their social conservative agenda.

1. The recent Democrat legislative victories included the election of putative pro-life Democrats. Social conservatives can argue with a straight face that they have given their party the keys to the kingdom.
2. The Republican Party could possibly be on the self-destructive path toward nominating a pro-abortion candidate. Even though Democrats have no hope of putting forward a legitimate pro-life nominee, if conservatives could nudge the Democrat Party rightward on social issues, they might conceivably woo back into the fold a sizable number of Southern ex-Democrats who have grown frustrated with the GOP.
3. The black and hispanic demographics are palpably pro-life and anti-gay-activism. Without them, Democrats cannot win—even this election cycle. Blacks and hispanics have an opportunity in this election cycle to flex their political muscle and demand concessions from the white, liberal, academic coalition that has dominated Democrat platform determinations since the 1970s. NARAL simply lacks the public support to put anyone into the White House.

What concessions might social conservatives demand from the Democrat Party? A pro-life plank in the party platform is probably an overreach, especially since none of the presidential candidates would support such a move. But they might be able to secure a neutral plank on the platform, similar to that endorsed by Democrats for Life of America. And I think there is a realistic hope that the Democrat platform might be altered to affirm marriage as consisting exclusively of the union of a man and a woman. After all, Howard Dean already misstated the platform in just such language to a group of evangelicals (see here), and even John Kerry has questioned the wisdom of supporting gay marriage in Democrat platforms (see here). I'm a Republican, and I don't see that changing any time soon. But social conservative issues are too important for social conservatives to put all of their eggs into the GOP basket. The nation only benefits if godly people are willing to push for the advancement of social conservative issues in every political party. The question is: Do enough social conservative leaders remain within the Democrat Party to make this kind of change, or did the party succeed in purging nearly all of them in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to prevent any future renaissance of socially conservative Democrats?

Employment Ethics Redux

The only post that did not survive my blogotastrophy earlier this month was the most recent post (apparently Google had not had enough time to cache that one). So, I ask you all, can you build for me a biblical ethic of employment? Obviously, the topic is relevant to the current Baptist blog discussion. But beyond that, it is a topic that is relevant to virtually every member of your church. It is highly likely to be relevant to yourself. What does the Bible say? Here are some biblical topics that I think could be relevant:

1. Stewardship
2. An obligation to pay promised wages (James 5:1-6, esp. 4)
3. Obligations of masters toward slaves and slaves toward masters (Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-4:1; 1 Timothy 6:1-2)
4. The parable of the laborers in the vineyard? (Matthew 20:1-16)
5. Work-related passages in the Proverbs and elsewhere (like 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15)

Using this list, plus whatever other material you could contribute, can you devise a biblical ethic of employment? It would need to be one that could cover both the situation of the rich employing the poor and the poor employing the rich (e.g., Ted Kennedy working for the rest of us in the United States Senate). I'll offer a few observations that hint toward my position:

1. Although I see no proscription in the Bible against the idea of collective bargaining, certainly there is no prescription for it, either. The moral standard offered in Jesus' parable in Matthew 20 (and I think that the morality of the employer is precisely the point of the parable) is that the employer lived up to the terms of his individual negotiations with each laborer. There is nothing inherently unfair about letting each employee negotiate for himself, even if the comparative result appears inequitable.
2. The most prominent employment-related rule in the scripture requires that employers pay agreed-upon wages for work performed.
3. Rights to vacation time, sick days, 401-K retirement matching, universal health care, seniority, tenure, early retirement, overtime pay, etc., are not biblical concepts. They are fine to the degree that they are the fruit of negotiation between employer and employee, but an employer's above-board refusal to provide such things is in no way immoral.
4. An employer's first obligation is as a steward of the institution. It is better to fire one employee for the betterment of the institution than by laxity in firing to run the institution into the ground and endanger the jobs of all the institution's employees.
5. It follows from the preceding principle that some sense of non-discriminatory hiring is incumbent upon employers. The employer who foregoes the hiring of a superior employee simply because of race, religion, etc., places the institution at a comparative disadvantage to the institution that does hire the superior employee. This is poor stewardship of the institution. Of course, this assumes that the attribute by which one discriminates does not affect aptitude for the job. An audio post-production facility might very well want to hire a blind person; American Airlines's pilot recruiters probably should not. Religious conviction ought to be a factor in most of our denominational hires. The Bible makes gender a relevant factor in at least some ministry-related considerations. But for a church to discriminate against a potential pastor because he is, for example, older than 50 is a foolish decision.
6. To summarize for those of us in the employee pool: Nobody has a Christian obligation to provide a job for you. Nobody has a Christian obligation to allow you to continue in your present job. Nobody has a Christian obligation to make certain that your remuneration in your job is at equity with that of other people with the same or similar jobs. To the degree that you can demonstrate that you add superior overall value to an institution, the employer has the obligation to the owners of the institution to hire you if he can.

Mission Trip

A year and a half after Hurricane Rita roared through, the people of Port Arthur, TX, are still recovering. I'll be trying to help in my pitiful little way this week. It turns out that blogging and Baptist History instruction are not high upon their list of needs, so I'll probably be working with hammer and crowbar. Me with tools...guess how that usually turns out!

A Lesson from History

I've mentioned this historical analogy twice in comment streams, but since (a) one of those comment streams I have now inadvertently vaporized, and (b) the other is over 100 comments long and not easy to sort through, I decided to give this thought an entry of its own. Guess how the Jews came to be dominated by the Romans? You'll find the story in this Wikipedia article, and it is all about one of God's people coming to the conclusion that he had been "wronged" and then appealing to an unbeliever for resolution of the conflict. The aftermath benefitted nobody.

Questions About Lawsuits

1. Can we say, "As long as SWBTS hasn't done anything wrong, there's nothing to fear from a lawsuit"? Sure, if you are of the conviction that juries and judges always decide lawsuits correctly. Of course, the only way to hold that view is not to have read a newspaper for the past thirty years.
2. Are 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 and Romans 13:1-7 in tension with one another? Not at all. 1 Corinthians 6:1-7 is precisely, spot-on, exactly about the question of one Christian suing another Christian in a secular court. Romans 13:1-7, on the other hand, is about believers being in submission to legitimate governmental authority. Romans 13 says nothing about and has nothing to do with the question of a believer instigating a lawsuit against another believer. Here's what Romans 13 means with regard to lawsuits: If someone wins a lawsuit against you, the Bible mandates that you should submit to the verdict as unto the authority of God.
3. Is it an odd inconsistency that conservative bloggers have cried foul about the Klouda lawsuit without having criticized the Missouri lawsuits? I can't speak for everyone, but it is not at all strange in my case. I wasn't blogging when the Missouri lawsuits were filed. I don't live in Missouri and have not blogged extensively about Missouri events. I find it not strange at all that I have not mentioned these past events from a foreign land :-) in this blog. Once asked (in the last post), I immediately offered my opinion, and I think it falls right in line with what I've said about the Klouda lawsuit.
4. Are there any circumstances in which a Christian can file a lawsuit? The passage in question addresses the specific issue of Christians suing Christians in secular courts. If one were attempting to redress a grievance with someone who was not a Christian, I could not argue that this passage would prohibit a lawsuit. But I would think very carefully about it nonetheless.
5. But what about when someone acts dishonestly and it looks like they are going to get away with it. A man who pretended to be a friend of my family came and spent long hours visiting with my father. Dad took him throughout the factory, talked about proprietary practices—my Dad was a storyteller and loved to visit. A month later, this "friend" had opened a competing factory in the next town down the road and had launched a campaign to steal our customers. Not long afterwards, we hired a Purchasing Manager. She was a Christian—a Baptist—and very vocal about her faith. She signed an employment agreement promising that she would not leave our firm to go to work for any competing firm. After a couple of years, she left our company and went to work for the competing company that this purported "friend" had started. Her rationale, "[The employment agreement that she had signed] isn't worth the paper it is printed on." My thoughts: It was worth no more than her word was worth. Did we sue her? No. Even lost people refrain from suing someone for a debt of $200. Why? Because the costs of the lawsuit would be more than anyone could hope to gain. I submit to you that, for a Christian, the costs of a lawsuit must be calculated using more than a financial ledger. There is the cost to our witness. There is the cost that any of us bear when we directly contradict God's word and disobey it. Even assuming that the other person is 100% in the wrong...Vengeance is God's, not Judge Wapner's.

The New MD Translation

Today came the announcement that the Memphis Declaration folks are producing a new translation of the Bible. To provide the highest quality translation possible, the group has outsourced much of the translation work to experts. Meet the translation committee for 1 Corinthians 6:1-7.

Not Quite Gone Forever

Very big kudos to Colin, he's the guy who made this possible. I was able to get all of my old posts back from Google's page caches. Whew! I haven't actually posted them all, yet. I will eventually. I posted a few, but I need to get some sleep now.