|
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Our political dynasties
Peggy Noonan has an interesting column in Saturday's Wall Street Journal about the situation faced by today's Democrats: the seeming inevitability of Hillary Clinton even as other, better qualified candidates go nowhere. She concludes:
"Mrs. Clinton is so far ahead so early on for the same reason Mr. Bush was so far ahead so early on in 2000, and after only six years as governor, with no previous offices behind him.
It is the nature of modern politics. A political family gains allies--retainers, supporters, hangers-on, admirers, associates, in-house Machiavellis. The bigger the government, the more ways allies can be awarded, which binds them more closely. Your destiny is theirs. Members of the court recruit others. Money lines spread person to person, company to company, board to board, mover to mover.
"The most important part is the money lines. Power is expensive. The second most important part is the word "winner." The Bushes are winners; the Clintons are winners. We know this, they've won. The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For a generation, two generations now, they have had the same dynamics in play, only their friends are on the blue team, not the red, or the red, not the blue.
"They are, both groups, up and ready and good to go every election cycle. They are machines. There are good people on each side, idealists, the hopeful, those convinced the triumph of their views will make our country better. And there are those on each side who are not so wonderful, not so well-meaning, not well-meaning at all. And some are idiots, but very comfortable ones.
Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability? Is it good in terms of how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves? Or is it something we want to break out of, like a trance?
"It would be understandable if they were families of a most extraordinary natural distinction and self-sacrifice. But these are not the Adamses of Massachusetts we're talking about. You've noticed, right?" (Click here to read the full column)
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Has church planting replaced evangelism?
"Crusades haven't disappeared, and churches still teach personal witness. But today, church planting is the default mode for evangelism," according to Tim Stafford, writing in the Sept. 28 edition of Christianity Today.
Stafford writes that the trend among evangelical denominations is toward reaching people through the planting of new churches as the primary methodology for evangelism. Advocates, such as the Acts 29 group, argue that this is the biblical model of outreach. Others point out that new churches simply reach more non-Christians than do existing churches. As George Hunter of Asbury Theological Seminary says, "Churches after 15 years typically plateau. After 35 years, they typically can't even replace those [members] they lose. New congregations reach a lot more pre-Christian people."
Existing congregations, Stafford notes, "tend to turn inward, no matter how hard they try to resist the trend. But new churches must look outward to survive." (Click here to read the full story.)
In his blog today, R. Albert Mohler responds to Stafford's article, celebrating the drive to plant churches (and noting the enthusiasm for it that he sense among young ministers on his seminary campus), but also offering some cautions:
"There can be no doubt that the planting of new congregations is a New Testament model. This approach comes with apostolic encouragement, as any reading of the Book of Acts and Paul's letters will reveal. Many of these new congregations will be fueled with great passion for the Gospel and for reaching unreached communities, people groups, and sectors of our society. This is indeed good news.
"At the same time, we also need this generation of young pastors to go into established churches and revitalize a Gospel ministry through expository preaching and energetic leadership. Giving up on the established church is not an option. Some young pastors see church planting as a way of avoiding the challenge of dealing with the people and pathologies of older congregations. This is an abdication of responsibility."
While new church plants offer great opportunities, Mohler says, they are not the only option for new growth, nor are they always successful: "Many established churches are showing signs of new life, often under new leadership. As one pastor explained, this sometimes means planting a new church within an older church. On the other hand, only a fraction of newly planted churches exist as operational congregations five years after their founding.
"Similarly, the passion to reach unreached populations is entirely laudable and urgent. The sad reality is that many of our established evangelical churches seem determined to reach only people who look like themselves -- if they are committed to reach anyone at all. The danger on the other side is that many of these newly-planted churches begin to look like their founders and first members. A church of tattooed twenty-somethings in New York can be just as lacking in diversity as the aging middle class congregation at First Church. " (Click here to read Mohler's commentary.)
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Slaves no more
There have been lots of news reports about the recent meeting of America's Episcopal bishops and their reluctance to shift direction on the ordination of homosexuals in response to the appeals of the worldwide Anglican communion. (Click here for one analysis.) As a result, it's still likely that a split is coming that will separate the US church from the the majority of Anglicans in the Global South.
Some have expressed concern about this possibility, given that the US church gives a disproportionate share of funding to the Anglican cause. But Peter Akinola, the Nigerian bishop who has become a leader for Anglican conservatives, has made it clear that lost dollars will not deter the church in beiong faithful to God's Word. He has said:
"We in Africa are always on the receiving end. We have had human slavery, political slavery, economic slavery and now religious slavery. We in the church are saying no. We are prepared to live by what God says, not what you say. Man shall not sleep with man, woman shall not sleep with woman.
"They are trying to make my God a liar. That I will not accept. If that's the case, then better to be poor and loyal to God than to have all the money in the world. If we are faithful to God, we can meet all our needs." (Peter J. Akinola, interview with Glenn McKenzie, AP, The State.com, November 27, 2003)
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Run, Fred. Well, at least wake up.
Listening to the Sean Hannity radio show yesterday while I was driving, I heard an interview with Fred Thompson, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Lots of folks have high hopes for Fred, but he's going to have to do a lot better in representing himself than I heard yesterday.
I know he's laid-back in style, but his style on the radio was more than laid back -- it was virtually asleep. He seemed disinterested and not very articulate -- lots of "uh's" and "um's" as he meandered through his answers. It was as if Hannity's call had just woken him from a nap.
I'm a Tennessean and surrounded by Fred-heads. And, frankly, there's a lot to like about him -- his video announcement of his candidacy was a masterpiece of the political art. Right now he's doing well in the polls -- as much because of dissatisfaction with the other candidates as excitement about him -- but shooting videos alone won't get you through an election. Fred is going to need to move his game to a new level or he'll find himself really laid back -- as in left behind.
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
No Philly Cheesesteaks for me this fall
For anyone planning to join us at the Growing a Biblical Sermon conference in Phladelphia in a couple of weeks, we have had to postpone that seminar because of some major church event conflicts in the area. We'll look at rescheduling this one for some time next year.
But the rest of the events are ready to go, so if you haven't already registered, do it soon!
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
I'm Episcopalian. No, wait, now I'm Baptist.
I've heard of foxhole conversions, but this is the first time I've heard of a primary conversion.
It seems that Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, who has long identified himself as an Episcopalian, is now telling folks in heavily-Baptist South Carolina that he is a Baptist and has been for years. According to the report in the Christian Post website:
"It's well known because I'm an active member of the church," the Arizona senator told reporters Sunday, referring to North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona, where he and his family have been members for more than 15 years.
At a campaign stop at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Anderson, S.C., McCain said he has made plenty of public expressions of his faith. "I've done that hundreds of times," McCain said, according to The Associated Press, adding he has spoken at length with his pastor at the Arizona church.
In media reports, however, McCain has consistently referred to himself as Episcopalian and told McClatchy Newspapers in June that while his wife and two of their children have been baptized in the Baptist church, he had not. "I didn't find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs," he said.
Despite this, McCain is still considered a full member of the church as baptism is not necessary to be one, as the senator said he was told." (Click here to read the full article)
It's interesting that Republican politics has apparently even managed to change the doctrinal position of the Southern Baptist congregation, if McCain is to be believed. There aren't many SBC churches that don't require baptism to be a member, and I doubt the relatively-conservative North Phoenix is one.
Which means that the prospective presidential candidate either doesn't understand what it takes to be a member of "his" church, or he's adapting his resume to accomodate the area in which he's campaigning. There's a lot to like about John McCain, but in this instance it sounds like the "Straight Talk Express" has hit a pretty hefty bump.
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Be fruitful and multiply
Chuck Colson has an interesting commentary about a demographic reality of American life: conservative religious believers are having more children than their secular neighbors. And since children have a propensity to follow their family tradition in such matters, it's likely there's a future surge coming in conservative evangelicals.
Colson writes: "Christians are having far more children than their secular neighbors. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, social scientist Arthur Brooks notes that if you pick 100 adults out of the population who attend their houses of worship nearly every week, they would have 223 children among them. But among 100 people who attend religious services less than once a year—or never—you would find 158 kids. That's a 41 percent fertility gap between religious and secular people.
"Even worse—if you are a secularist—religious people who identify themselves as politically "conservative" or "very conservative" are having, on average, an astonishing 78 percent more kids than secular liberals, Brooks writes.
"This is significant, because kids tend to grow up to worship the way their parents do. In a generation or two, we are going to have a bumper crop of conservative citizens. Candidates who appeal to Christians will win more elections simply because of demographics."
There are some possible exceptions to the political dimension: for example, African-Americans and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics tend to be religiously conservative yet vote for more liberal politicians. Still, this is an interesting trend that mirrors what James Taranto (of OpinionJournal.com) calls the "Roe effect" -- that liberals are more likely to abort their offspring than conservatives, meaning that the conservative population is growing while liberals are failing to replace themselves.
(Click here to read the full Colson column.)
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 1 comment(s) so far.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Six Years Later
Today is the sixth anniversary of the attacks of Muslim radicals on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. Amidst the annual commemorations, there is talk of "9/11 fatigue." (Though not in my neighborhood, where we seem to be the only house that neglected to put out a flag last night.) The Weekly Standard has an interesting piece of the question of 9/11 fatigue. (Click here to read.)
If remembering 9/11 is simply an extended period of mourning for those who were lost -- a natural response of family and friends -- then it would be time for the rest of us to "move on" from such emotions. But 9/11 is not simply a day of loss. We remember it because it was a day when many Americans recognized for the first time that we are a nation engaged in a long-term conflict with a radical and violent worldview (radical Islam) that will change our world if we ignore their threat. Six years later, too many Americans seem to have forgotten that this is a battle we must not ignore.
And 9/11 is also a day to celebrate heroism. We think about those men and women who gave their lives trying to save people at the World Trade Center, those brave passengers of United 93 who struck back with the first blow against our attackers, and those courageous soldiers who have paid the ultimate price in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in defending their country. Today is an appropriate day to think about them, and to thank God for the bravery and character they reflected.
And 9/11 is a day to look forward with resolve, united in a commitment to faithfully preserve the legacy of faith and freedom that we have inherited.
Post a Comment.
Read other comments: 0 comment(s) so far.
|
|
|
