Obama

The Politics of Falsehood

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    I try to guard my personal opinions from the members of my church because their knowledge of my opinion may interfere with my ability to communicate a far more important message.  I hope that no one in the congregation of our church ever feels that they cannot objectively hear what I am teaching about the Bible because of some perceived political disagreement.  Even so, I have grave misgivings about our upcoming election and it isn’t just about the candidates.  My problem is that, perhaps now more than ever, the truth is taking a beating.
    In the television series “House,” Dr. Gregory House is fond of reminding his staff that “Everybody lies.”  Never has this been truer than during this election.  Each candidate has been caught stretching the truth, or worse.  It seems that after every speech or public appearance the fact-checkers are out in full force pointing out what was incorrect or misrepresented.  Even the media have been caught being “inventive.”  Sadly in the decades since the Watergate scandal, we’ve grown accustomed to “media bias” and understand that each news outlet allows their particular worldview to color their reporting, but now we’re seeing media outlets create their own news or creatively editing audio and video without revealing what they’ve done.  Heck, even the fact-checkers can’t be trusted.  After a recent speech by Paul Ryan, one set of fact checkers went wild pointing out his apparent “lies,” followed by another that pointed out the flaws in the “facts” presented by the first set of fact-checkers, and so on… for nearly a week.  
(Sigh)
    The television show, The X-Files” told us that we should “trust no one.”  This election certainly seems to make us think that this is true, but if we take a look at scripture we might regain a better perspective.  Our problem is that we expect our leaders to tell the truth, and our anger and disillusionment grow out of their failure to live up to our expectations.  We often think of the Bible as being full of love and grace, but in this regard scripture cautions us to be far more cautious, perhaps even downright cynical.  Psalm 20:7 reminds us that while “Some trust in chariots and some in horses… we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”  Whenever we think that the government or the military or any human authority is our salvation, we are in deep trouble.  Isaiah goes farther saying, “Stop trusting in mere humans, who have but a breath in their nostrils. Why hold them in esteem? (Isaiah 2:22)  Particularly when we expect government to be trustworthy, our trust in is misplaced.  Psalm 118:8 teaches that “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in humans.”
    The clear theme here is that whenever we put our trust in human beings, we are sure to be disappointed but there is one upon whom we can safely place our trust.  Psalm 119:138 declares that “The statutes you have laid down are righteous; they are fully trustworthy.”And Proverbs 3:5 says that we should “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
    So does that mean that we as Christians should give our elected representatives and our media pass?  Should we simply overlook their self-serving dance with the truth?  Clearly, no.  Proverbs 12:22 says that “The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.” What’s more, Paul declares that “…it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (Romans 12:21)  We should not overlook what our elected officials and the candidates for office are doing to the truth, but we should do all that we can to hold them accountable.
    As we move ever closer to our next presidential election, the followers of Jesus Christ need to hold fast to the truth that we have been given.  We cannot be content to choose the “lesser of two evils” but instead remember our calling to be agents of truth and good in the world around us.  The apostle Paul put it this way, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  (Romans 12:9)
    Instead of giving anyone a pass for playing fast and loose with the truth, or making excuses because “everybody does it,” let us instead recommit ourselves to love, hope, and goodness.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  (1 Corinthians 4:2) 

Just How Many Homosexuals Are There?

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    Given the current media frenzy over President Obama’s ‘coming out’ to support gay marriage as well as North Carolina’s vote to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman, I found it interesting to find that most Americans have no idea how many gay, lesbian or bisexual persons live among us, or at least, they think they know but don’t.  Certainly, anyone who watches television or most any other media knows that nearly every program has a gay or lesbian character or openly deals with the subject in one way or another.  This media exposure has, perhaps, swayed the public perception of homosexuals in our population. 
     
    Back in 1948 Alfred Kinsey shocked the world when he estimated that fully 10 percent of American men were gay.  But by May of 2011, the Gallup organization surveyed Americans and asked them to estimate how many Americans are gay or lesbian.  What they found was that more than half of all Americans estimated that gays and lesbians represented at least 20 percent (1 in 5) of the population and 35 percent believed that gays and lesbians made up 25 percent (1 in 4) or more of all Americans  (full survey results here) .  Young people (those under 29), liberals, Democrats, and women are more likely to give a higher estimate while those over 50, conservatives, Republicans, and men are likely to give a somewhat lower answer.  So what’s the truth?
    The truth is that almost no one is even close to the truth.  In Gallup’s survey, less than 4 percent of those taking the survey estimated that the population of gays and lesbians was less than 5 percent.  These would be the only people whose guess was close.   A quick look through Wikipedia and other available Internet articles provide estimates as low as 1 or 2 percent and as high as 6 percent but according to Gallup, the best available data puts the real numbers at 3.5 percent (gays, lesbians and bi-sexuals).
    I don’t have any particular agenda to saying this other than I find it interesting how many people simply assume that the gay and lesbian population is nearly ten times larger than it really is.  As we move forward, both as a nation and as people of faith, we need to have some important conversations about equal rights, fairness and compassion.   
When we do, it might just be helpful to start with the truth.

What’s the Big Deal About Sex?

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    Early this month a group of Secret Service Agents as well as military personnel (presumably male), were in Columbia as a part of President Barack Obama’s trip there for a multinational conference.  As most of us have seen in the news, these individuals had a grand time partying with prostitutes after hours prior to the President’s arrival.  Once they returned home, this exploded into a scandal of epic proportions.  But so what?  From the perspective of faith and the church, I could easily make a list of why this was not a good thing for these men to do, but I really wonder if Congress’ shock at the behavior of the Secret Service is only for show during an election year.  After all, what’s the big deal about sex?  Here are a few questions that are being raised:
    Whose money did they spend?  Congressman Peter King wants to know if the money these men spent was taxpayer per diem.  So what if it was?  Per Diem (literally, per day) is money paid to persons who are on special duty or special assignment.  It is, simply, a paycheck.  If these men were paid per diem, it is because they were working on a job where they earned it.  If Congressman King believes that we the people have a right to control how someone spends a government paycheck then he is going to have an awful lot his fellow representatives looking over their collective shoulders.
    They work for the government.  So what?  They were not ‘at work,’ it was after hours, they were on their own time.  How often have we heard that what we do on our personal time is nobody’s business?
    It’s illegal.  No it isn’t.  Prostitution might be illegal in most places here in the United States, but it isn’t in Columbia.  Besides the financial transaction, this was simply an arrangement between consenting adults.
    It’s immoral.  What?  We in the church have been told loudly and often that we shouldn’t force our moral values on others.  In our modern culture, we are told, it is perfectly acceptable and normal for adults to determine their own morality.  In that environment, who should judge whether the behavior of these men is immoral or not?  Besides, in recent decades Congress seems to have made a hobby of turning a blind eye to the moral and sexual indiscretions of their peers.  Judge not, lest ye be judged, right?
    What these men did certainly violates many of the teaching of Christianity but with increasing regularity we are reminded that the United States is increasingly multi-cultural, multi-religious and increasingly non-religious.  Even the President said “Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.” (Barack Obama, June 28, 2006)  And so again I ask, so what?
    Certainly I realize that there are national security concerns that come with allowing our Secret Service personnel to cavort with prostitutes but historically, one major concern was that such behavior would result in blackmail.  In this era of new morality, why is that a concern either?  If these men are free to dictate their own morality and what they were doing was perfectly legal, then what leverage remains for blackmail?
    I don’t doubt that there were rules in place both by the Secret Service and by the military and I don’t doubt that rules were broken.  But if we, as an enlightened and liberated society, have refused to legislate morality and if we have cast off the bonds of propriety, allowing morals to be defined by every individual, then all that we have left to guide us are rules, and frankly, rules aren’t much to count on as the underpinning of an entire society.
    I want to be clear, I don’t agree with what these men did.  What they did was both wrong and stupid, but I say these things to make a point.  It may indeed be true that we are no longer a Christian nation, but once we have cast off the lines that tie our culture to a fixed and immovable standard of decency and morality, the coastline can get pretty fuzzy.

An Open Letter to Our Nation’s Leaders

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    As the dust begins to settle in this recent election, it is apparent that we remain a nation divided.  On the other hand, maybe not.  The news media is describing the mood of the country as having a great deal of “anti-democrat” sentiment or as having an “anti-incumbent” sentiment and while I suppose both of those exist, I think that there is a larger unifying theme that joins many of us regardless of our general political leanings.  As such, today’s blog is an open letter to all of our elected officials from our local city councilpersons and county commissioners, all the way up to the current resident of the White House.  Here, I want to say a few things that our leadership would hear from all of us over a long lunch, and a few things that I’ve learned from my family, my friends and from life in general.
To all of our elected officials of every kind,
    If you were recently elected (or re-elected) I would like to caution you not to get a big head.  There is a good chance that your election had little to do with you, personally, and a lot to do with the performance (or lack thereof) of your predecessor.  Lately, we voters are all kind of tired of what we are seeing and we’ve been in the mood to throw out leaders who are not living up to our expectations.  As you begin your new terms, here are a few things to watch out for:
1)      Keep your promises.  To you this may seem trite or even quaint but for a lot of us, honor is still important.  We understand that it’s common for politicians to promise the moon so that they can get elected, but be careful what you promise, because, despite the rumors to the contrary, we’re not stupid and we will remember what you said.  George Bush promised “No new taxes” but failed to keep his promise.  We remembered.  Barak Obama promised that his administration would never vote on legislation without having a minimum of seven days for the public to look it over.   That didn’t happen.  This week’s election is a hint that we haven’t forgotten your promises… even if you did.
2)      You can’t spend more than you make.  This is so simple it seems silly to have to point it out.  Every couple of weeks I get a paycheck and every month I get bills for stuff that I have to pay.  This happens to everyone that I know, for every business that I know and for the church where I work.  Once in a while I can spend more than I make.  I took a huge pay cut when I became a pastor and went to seminary.  Our pay cut was so large and the bills for seminary were so big that things didn’t even out.  To make up the difference, we spent some of the money we had from selling our house.  We knew it couldn’t last but we also knew that my time in seminary would only last for a few years.  When people spend more than they make, whether it’s because they bought a house or a car or a flat screen TV, sooner or later they need to pay for it.  For about fifty years now, our leaders have been spending more than our government takes in.  Lately, it has only gotten worse.  We can’t understand why you don’t think it’s a problem.  We know it’s a problem.  It worries us.  We expect you to fix it (or at least get started).  If you ignore this, again, we will replace you… again.
3)      People don’t like change regardless of how much they say they want it or need it.  This one is harder to understand but I’ve seen it enough times in my community and in my church that I know it’s true.  When my school system needed a new school building they had a hard time convincing people that we should build a new one.  Our old school was almost a hundred years old, had dozens of building code violations, wasn’t handicap accessible and was full of asbestos.  On top of that, the state of Ohio was willing to pay for more than half of a new building which mean that a new building would cost millions less than the cost of repairs to the old one.  Still, the school board took over a year, with dozens of special meetings to convince the community that it was necessary and the vote was still close.  I’ve known people with serious health problems who endured months of suffering before they were convinced to go see a doctor.  We get comfortable in our routine.  We want you to do your job, but you need to know that change is scary.  Before you make changes, you need to explain what you are doing, let us think about it for a while and then proceed slowly and carefully so we can see how things are going.  This is especially important because our trust in you is not particularly high right now.
4)      The bigger the project, the more support you need.  You will probably not find this anywhere in your history books but this is a place where our government has created division and animosity between its own citizens.  Last year, I was interviewing pastors who had been involved in merging churches or in church building projects.  These are two of the biggest changes ever experienced in the life of a church.  One of the rules that emerged from these interviews was that if there was not a minimum of 70 to 80 percent support for the change, then they would go back and start over.   In a church, failing to gain a super-majority of support for a big project will likely mean that people will be so angry that they leave the church.  In our nation, when you pass really big projects with only a slim majority, you create animosity and division instead of unity and cohesiveness.  You don’t need to wonder why our nation has become so polarized because you are the ones who did it, Republicans and Democrats alike.  
  
    Don’t think that because you’ve won the election, that you can do whatever you want.  Don’t think that because you have a majority, that you can do whatever you want.  In recent decades we’ve seen several major shifts from Democrat to Republican and back again.  Please remember that it isn’t about what you call yourself, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or whatever, it’s much more important that you do the things that we sent you to do.

Feel free to ignore us…
…but then again…
…your predecessors did…
…and they’re not here anymore.

Who Can We Blame?

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It seems that every day there is more to read about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I understand that this is a huge news story that affects millions of people along the southern coast of the United States and I am really not too concerned that the media is (typically) overplaying the story. What concerns me is the way that local residents, and politicians of all stripes (local, state, and federal) are turning a horrible accident into a bizarre circus of finger pointing in the extreme. Legally, I understand that the cost to clean up the mess will be enough to bankrupt several major corporations and that BP may not survive to pay for it all. I understand that BP will want to shift some or all of this financial burden onto whichever other corporate entities may have had a role in allowing this accident to happen. What I have a problem with, is the tendency that people have for wanting to make this tragedy personal.

Folks are pointing a finger at the CEO of British Petroleum and saying that it is, personally, his fault that this happened. They point fingers variously at President George Bush and President Obama and the commander of the Coast Guard and anyone else that seems even remotely convenient and somehow construe the facts of history to make it that persons fault. Yes, mistakes were made. No, things happened that shouldn’t have happened. Shortcuts were taken that shouldn’t have been. All that can be true and still, it doesn’t have to be any single person’s “fault.” That’s why they call them accidents.

Many of the policies in place were enacted by the Bush administration but they were likely voted on by many members of the opposing party. Many of these policies were changed by the Obama administration and the enforcement of these regulations fall to that administration as well. In either case, I doubt very much that either President Bush or President Obama had any specific knowledge of what was happening on this one particular drilling rig. Likewise, I doubt that the president of BP, who is (or at least was) not an American and who does not live in the United States (BP stands for British Petroleum, remember?) knew anything about the specifics of what was happening on one of the hundreds of drilling operations his company was conduction around the globe. Certainly none of this was intentional. The spill alone is horrible. The environmental damage is unimaginable. Thousands of people have lost their livelihoods and eleven men lost their lives aboard the Deepwater Horizon. No sane person would have intentionally caused this to happen or even allowed it to happen. It was an accident.

Psychologists tell us that when people are under stress they look for a place to focus that stress. It happens in churches that are undergoing significant change. When people are under stress they want someone to be responsible for the stress they feel and will often reach out to any convenient authority figure. I have been the focus of such stress. All sorts of elaborate stories can be created to direct that stress, or blame, upon these convenient figures regardless of the facts or the truth. Reality just isn’t that tidy.

The reality is that churches that are undergoing change have often come upon that change in a process that spanned many years and involved many more people. The reality of the accident aboard the Deepwater Horizon is that its causes were undoubtedly many and involved persons from the drilling rig, its owners, BP, regulators and members of state and federal government. Even worse, pressures were put on all these players by market forces by which each and every one of us played a part. Face it, when I get off the freeway to buy gasoline I really don’t give a rip about who has the best environmental record, I just want the cheapest gas. The pressure to produce fuel cheaply and to develop an abundant domestic supply while abiding by the various restrictions placed upon them undoubtedly played upon some of the poor decisions that were made and which led up to the accident. Besides that, accidents happen despite the best intentions or preparations of any of human being. That’s why we call them accidents.

I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be a complete and thorough investigation, there should and if criminal acts were committed then those acts should be punished. Neither am I saying that BP and its subsidiaries and subcontractors should not pay for the damages caused and the cleanup that is required, they should. What I am saying is that I doubt that we will ever find a smoking gun. I doubt that anyone will ever be able to say that any one person or that any specific group of people are, personally, responsible for this accident.

As people of faith, especially as people of faith, we need to be clearer about that. Instead of becoming belligerent and argumentative, instead of busying ourselves pointing fingers at people who were far removed from actual events, we need to have a different focus. As people of faith, we need to let the justice system do its job and conduct its investigation without our interference. As people of faith, we need to focus our attention on the least and the lost, to try to help those who have been harmed by this disaster and who have no safety net to catch them. As people of faith, instead of looking for people to blame, we need to show a little grace.