Tag: Christian Politics

I just received a comment on our “about” page from a pro-life blogger who wanted to use my site to promote his pro-life movement. Unfortunately, instead of *asking* for me to promote him, he just went ahead and commented with a full-page advertisement. His comment has since been deleted, and I’m not going to even bother linking to him, since I don’t think he should get any positive credit for using spam techniques, no matter how good his cause.

However, I thought I’d post the email reply I sent to him:

> I received a comment from you on my site that ammounted to a complete article/advertisement for your organization. I’m deleting your comment, and I thought you might like to know why.

> While I am 100% behind anything that might help to end the scourge of abortion, it isn’t fair to me or to anyone else for you to take advantage of my space to advertise your programs without my permission. I’m sure you have an excellent agenda, but taking advantage of other people to promote it is unchristian and uncalled for.

> If you had posted a comment asking me to post something about your organization, I might have been willing to give you front page space to do so, and hopefully drawn the attention of whatever readers I might have. But as it is, your comment counts as little more than spam, and so it will be deleted.

Peace,
Kyle French

From [the Curmudgeon](http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/) I received word of an [excellent speech](http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/) on preemptive war, nation building, and American idealism that is very well worth the read. It was both inspiring and wise.

The odd thing though, is that whatever his intended effect, the general impression I received had little to do with the content of his speech.

Man, I thought, if only *I* could do that with the *gospel*!

I’m sure by now you know that Bush has selected Harriet Miers for appointment to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. And I’m sure you’ve heard the disquiet that Harriet Miers has never served as a Judge. My understanding is that this is not that unusual, since Rehnquist also had never served as a Judge before being appointed to the SCOTUS. But that the consternation comes from not knowing hardly anything about her. William Dyer at [Beldar’s Blog](http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/) has some [good arguments](http://www.beldar.org/beldarblog/2005/10/the_miers_nomin.html) for why we can still be reasonably confident Bush knows what he’s doing.

Nevertheless, to the rest of us, Miers is a bit of an enigma. So I was pleased to look over Valerie’s shoulder this morning and read that [Miers is an Evangelical](http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=8727). Continue reading “Goofiness”

One of the things that we discussed in my CORE410 Ethics Course at Queens was the subject of euthanasia. I personally think that it’s a form of playing creator when you decide when to die under the guise of escaping suffering. I’m not Buddhist, I don’t think that suffering is the greatest evil. I also think that euthanasia, or physician assisted suicide, is utterly reprehensible and completely against the Hippocratic Oath. I don’t even want to see the convoluted loops that the physicians that support (and perform in places like Oregon and many European Countries) this type of “therapy” put their minds through. This article, however, takes the cake. Most ethical decisions have something called a “slippery slope” where one decision leads to the next in a continuing slide downward from the original decision and circumstances surrounding it. In my opinion, these “doctors” are pretty close to rock bottom.

Politics for a Christian, in my opinion, is primarily an act of apologetics. There’s nothing wrong with participating in society simply because you are a member of that society, but as Christians, we have a duty to participate in society *as representatives of Jesus Christ* This means that very little of what we do in public is morally neutral.

As I said yesterday, we have a calling to be both salt and light. As salt, we have a responsibility to intervene and actively bring corruption to a halt (see: preservative). As light, we have a responsibility to instruct the world on the difference between sin and righteousness. Often we get to do both at the same time.

OMF Serge makes this same point with much better clarity than I could over at [Imago Dei](http://www.imago-dei.net/) in his series on [The Myth of Moral Neutrality](http://www.imago-dei.net/imago_dei/2005/02/the_myth_of_mor.html). For one thing he has concrete examples.

Hat tip: [New Covenant](http://newcovenant.blogspot.com/)

One of my online discussions for seminary was a question of whether we ought to discuss politics in church. Almost everyone who responded to the question wholeheartedly endorsed the position that people should say nothing – nothing – at church in regard to politics. The most political statement that any person should make is that you should vote.

I think I was one of the very few people who pointed out that it’s one thing to pray for your political leaders and always honor and respect political authority. It’s another thing to deliberately censor yourself from political activity in a system that requires precisely that activity. Might as well have asked Constantine, upon conversion, not to pass any Christian laws so that he could properly “render unto Caesar.” In a democratic system, we **are** Caesar.

Continue reading “Christian Politics?”