The Politics of Balance

The United States of America is approaching it’s 250th year of existence. I hadn’t really thought of it that way until just now. But, really, it’s only 16 years away. That’s not really all that far, when you think about it. It’ll be here in the blink of an eye.

When I think back over the last couple hundred years of American politics, particularly as it pertains to our political parties, something strikes me profoundly about where we are today. Now, I can’t presume to know exactly what the founding fathers had in mind, though we do have enough material written by them to make some educated guesses. And it seems to me that if they were to look into the future and see with way our political system works today, they would have dedicated more time to preventing certain things by making certain things a bit more clear in such documents as our Constitution.

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God is…

God is love. We hear that a lot. And I think that’s absolutely true. God is love. However, I sometimes wonder if we are understanding the entire scope when we say things like that.

To say that “God is love” carries with it a rather distinct meaning from it’s inverse, “Love is God.” Those two things are not the same. This is very much unlike one of the mathematical theorems that says if a=b then b=a. There is a bit of difference between these concepts.

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Discrimination Against Christianity

One of the ironies in the area of politics and religion seems to be that those people who strongly profess a faith of some sort feel as though they are being persecuted by the secular minority and the secular minority feels as though they are being persecuted by those who are religious. It’s an interesting predicament.

Every time I read and article or hear a conversation about abortion or same-sex marriage or the myriad of other issues out there today, secularists say they’re trying to keep church and state separated and the Church cries out that their values are being obliterated and ignored. Both sides seem to perceive themselves as being discriminated against. And perhaps both sides are correct about that.

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The Convenience of Money

I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this, and perhaps I’m showing my age a bit, but do you remember what life was like before debit cards? I still remember what it was like when we didn’t have the Internet (or at least the World Wide Web), or cell phones, or ATMs.

The more I think about that, the more I can’t help but wonder if all the conveniences and advances in technology actually make life better, simpler or happier. That the last one is not true is probably a slam-dunk argument. What about better or simpler? As far as “better” that would be difficult to determine since that is a subjective thing.

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Misapplication of Truth

It’s not a new thing to point out the flaws of Christians and use that as an argument against the veracity of the Christian faith. Many things have been written on this subject and today I’ve been thinking about something along these lines that I have not yet read anywhere else.

That is, the idea of misapplying objective Truths. While, on the one hand, I could say that non-believers do this, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that believers do this as well. What brought this to mind was that I was reading a post regarding marriage and divorce.

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Abortion – A Religious Issue or a Secular Issue?

Ever since Roe v. Wade abortion has been quite a hot topic in the United States. It seems like every presidential election, Supreme Court Justice nomination, congressional election and senatorial election, this is one of the major topics of discussion. Where does each given candidate or nominee stand on the abortion issue?

Personally, I think that many of the pro-lifers out there who’s rhetoric I’ve heard discussed are taking the wrong approach. It would seem pretty fair to say that most of the pro-lifers in the U.S. take their stance based on religious convictions. Whether they are Christian, Jewish, Muslim or whatever, one of the largest arguments I’ve heard against abortion is that it is wrong for religious reasons.

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Truth and Relativity

In the ever-present effort to keep religion out of politics (I actually don’t think this is even possible, but that’s a subject for another time) many Christians are not doing their faith much justice. I’d like to say that I am often surprised at how often people downplay the importance of their faith in their lives, but I can’t.

While I understand the concept of not having a “state-sponsored” religion, I sometimes think that many Christians cut themselves off at the knees when it comes to proclaiming their own faith. They relativize it and feel uncomfortable sharing what they believe and why.

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Open Minded

Have you ever heard someone tell you that you need to be more open minded? The most interesting part about that is that most of those people don’t actually realize what they’re saying.

What does it actually mean to be open minded? In general, to be open minded means that you have a willingness (or openness) to listen to, and perhaps even entertain, thoughts or ideas that may directly conflict with your already established beliefs. But that is not how most people mean it.

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“Obamacare” Will End Up Using Taxpayer Dollars To Fund Abortions

The first set of taxpayer-funded abortions under the new healthcare law President Barack Obama signed has been approved by the Obama administration. Even though Obama and his allies told the public that taxpayers would not be paying for abortions under the law, unsurprisingly they will be.

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Hawaii Governor Rejects Same-Sex Civil Unions Bill

In a victory for the fight to maintain the definition of traditional marriage between one man and one woman, Hawaii’s Governor, Linda Lingle, vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have legalized same-sex civil unions.

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