Politics
The Church and Abortion
0I’ve recently had many heated discussion on abortion and adoption in the church.
Through those debates people have said that the church is doing its part by voting on abortion, etc.
That is not the case. Let me gives some numbers to back that up.
In the 2008 election season, According to InfoPlease, there were 231,229,580 registered voters in the US. Only 132,618,580 actually voted.
This means only 57% of registered voters voted. That is pathetic.
If we use the number that 76% of people in the US call themselves Christian, then, after crunching the numbers, of the 98,611,000 people who did not vote in the last election, 74,944,360 would identify themselves as Christian.
Let’s be super conservative and say that only 15% of those people were actually born again believers. That leaves us with 11,241,654 Christians that did not vote.
Why is this number a big deal? Good question.
According to this page, the difference in votes between Obama and McCain was 9,522,083.
Do the math. Christians could have prevented the election of Barack Obama, and they did not.
Why is this a big deal? I could get into a whole list of reasons, but check this information out.
To quote:
But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called “too close to infanticide.” Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.
Obama’s actions speak for themselves. He does not value the life of the unborn.
People tell me, “if we do our part for the orphans, then God will help us with abortion.”
I respectfully disagree with them.
Perhaps if we do our part, educate ourselves, and don’t pick a man to lead our country who has no care for the unborn, God would honor that decision, make it easier for people to adopt, and we would solve two problems at once.
Response to a Letter to Glenn Beck
1A blog from Randy Bohlender popped up in my Facebook news feed the other day, and I had to check it out, since it had to do with Glenn Beck.
As many of you may know, Glenn is a self-professed Mormon. How closely he follows the teachings of the Mormon church, I have know idea.
If Glenn is a true Mormon, then we very much disagree theologically, however, during his Restoring Honor rally, everything I heard, except for one statement, lined up very closely with what I believe.
The following are my responses to Randy’s original post. I figured I’d capture them here to further foster discussion.
Comment #1:
I saw this post on Facebook today (via Tracie Loux) and I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts and an answer from a slightly different perspective.
I watched a good 2.5 hours of the rally. It was incredibly moving. The speakers (plural) went out of their way to mention their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. One pastor, upon receiving the honor for Faith practically preached a Bible-based sermon in his acceptance speech.
As some of you have noted, it’s sad that Christians can’t get this sort of following and draw this sort of crowd, maybe, just maybe it’s because people see a lot of hypocrisy in the church (myself included at times) – just a thought.
So now I’ll get to some of my points.
1.) Glenn Beck calls himself a mormon. Guess what? Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama profess to be Christians. I would argue that their actions belie their professed faith. I’m not saying this is the case (none of us can see inside Glenn’s heart) but maybe he’s not “all that Mormon” for lack of a better term. Everything I heard Saturday, had I not known Glenn was a mormon, would have sounded just like something I’d expect to hear in my church on Sunday (except for the “go home to your Mosques, etc.” part.
Some of you may know David Barton, of wallbuilders.com. The following is a quote from David,
“For Christians concerned about Glenn’s faith, I would ask the following questions: What fruit do you see produced by Glenn,” David Barton, an influential evangelical activist who is joining Beck’s rally, wrote on his Facebook page recently. “Good or bad? If you judged Glenn only by the fruits he has produced, would you still hold concerns over his faith?”
“Christians concerned about Glenn’s faith should judge the tree by its fruits, not its labels,” Barton, a former Republican National Committee consultant, continued. “After all, Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton openly call themselves Christians… Although these individuals have the right labels, they have the wrong fruits.”
2.) Is God not big enough to speak through someone other than a Christian?
Are we following a messenger, or a message? Glenn was calling people to return to God, people were lifting up the name of Jesus Christ. It’s up to us to figure out the only true way to God. Yes, Glenn did not explicitly preach Christ as the only way, but this was a rally, not a church service.
Remember how God spoke through Balaam’s donkey? I’d like to think that if God can use a donkey to speak to His people, just maybe he can use a Mormon (or someone by any other faith label for that matter) to call His children back to Him.
God said in the last days He would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Unless I’m misinterpreting, that means everyone. Not just the born again. Again, perhaps God could use someone with the label “Christian” to lead His people back to Him. Look how He used Pharoah and the desert to waken up the Israelites.
While I do agree that we need to be discerning, I think we shouldn’t be so quick to write people off, and that we should look at the message as a whole.
Comment #2:
Randy, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I guess what I don’t get is there is only one Jesus, what you believe about Him doesn’t change the fact of who He is. I can believe 2+2 = 5 until I’m blue in the face, but that doesn’t make it so.
So if Glenn doesn’t have the whole picture of Jesus it doesn’t change the fact of who He is.
Again I took this more as a rallying call for the, I’ll call them “frozen chosen”. Those who already know God but are sitting on their butts not doing anything while our country literally travels on the path straight to Hell.
For these people, the call to action, the call to return to Godly values and morals, is, in my opinion, not effected by whether or not Glenn has the total picture of Jesus Christ.
For instance, if I were backslidden in my faith, and I heard Glenn’s message, it would be a call back to my first love, a call back to the truth. Whether or not Glenn totally understands that truth would be irrelevant because I would have already known that truth for myself.
Now, if he’s reaching out to people that know nothing about Jesus (which is not what I believe his target audience is), then that’s different.
Thanks for the discussion. I love a good back and forth.
Comment #3:
I think the point that many of the commenters are missing is that Glenn’s views on Jesus (which none of us really know, unless someone hear actually knows Glenn) don’t change who Jesus is.
For example, I could think Randy is a 70 year old man with no children that lives in Las Vegas. That doesn’t change the reality of who Randy is. I could believe the moon is made out of cheese – that doesn’t mean it is.
I completely understand that we need to follow Jesus as He is presented in the Bible. I get that, really I do.
But what I’m trying to say is that if someone is offering a return to God and to Jesus Christ who was mentioned as Lord and Savior by many people, to some extent, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter if they lack the complete understanding about Jesus.
And here’s why. Glenn isn’t saying, “follow the Mormon mis-guided idea of Jesus.” If he was, I’d be the first to say, “hey, that’s not right!”
We, the listeners are left to discern and follow the truth. Would it be better if Glenn got up and preached Scripture and led people to the “same” Jesus we believe in? Of course it was. Except that that wasn’t the point of the day.
I’ll offer this. The disciples (founders of the church) sometimes didn’t have a clue who Jesus was, and yet we don’t knock their ministry. They were totally clueless, but did that negate the good that they helped Jesus accomplish during his life on Earth? I hardly think so.
Maybe we can accept the message, despite the flaws in the messenger? After all, we’re all sinners saved by grace.
Comment #4:
Yes Glenn is wrong on that point.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I would say we have more in common with him than not.
Perhaps the collective church should get off their duffs and envigorate people the way Glenn is able to. Until then, I say good for him for making an attempt.
Warning
2A lot of things have been happening in my life recently, some of which I can’t talk too much about, other than to say amazing things are happening, and God is moving.
Many of you know that Danielle and I went through a miscarriage in early 2009 – an event that shattered our worlds, something we are still recovering from. Through it all, God has been faithful, and our friends and family have been amazing, and we owe you all such a big thank you for just going through this with us.
But I digress…things are happening. I feel a stirring. I guess that’s the best way to put it. I’m not really sure how to describe it other than a stirring and a reigniting of the passion in my life as it relates to politics and current event-type issues.
Some of this passion has led to quite heated debates on Facebook, but I think that’s a good thing. We shouldn’t just blindly believe whatever it is we believe. We should be able to back it up and to articulate why it is we believe one thing or another. I enjoy a good debate.
Then I re-read Ezekiel 33 where Ezekiel is told to warn the people of the coming danger. A couple of verses in particular really jumped out at me.
“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 8 When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for [a] his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.
And…
Yet your countrymen say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. 18 If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it.19 And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so. 20 Yet, O house of Israel, you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his own ways.
Some people that I love dearly have (I believe) accused me of making statements that “judge people.” I see these statements as stating fact, stating the truth in love. God has warned us that we need to tell people when danger is coming. If we don’t, their blood is on our hands.
If we don’t, their blood is on our hands. Let that sink in for however long it needs to.
So, I’m giving fair warning. I’m going to be sharing things, either on my blog, Facebook or both, that you might not agree with. That’s fine. I’m entitled to my opinion and to share what I believe the truth is. Just like you are entitled to your right to agree or disagree with what I say.
This doesn’t make me a racist, judgmental, a homophobe, an Islamaphobe or any other “phobe” you can come up.
I will be exercising my right to free speech, and I encourage you to do the same.
McChrystal…Out!
2Spurred on by a Tweet from Aunt Lori, I figured I would throw my $.02 in on the General McChrystal “resignation.”
I honestly don’t know much about the situation, and that’s saying a lot for someone who usually stays really up on politics. Work has been crazy busy with an end of the month project, my new MacBook Pro just got here, and there have been a ton of other things going on.
All I know is that the General made some comments critical of the administration. And now he’s not the top commander in Afghanistan anymore.
I will not comment on whether or not the comments were out of line, because I don’t know what they were. I do think that this administration seems to have thin skin and does not like it when anyone stands in there way or is critical of them.
The thing that just makes me chuckle is the top name on the replacement list – General David Petraues. One on the most demonized Generals from people on the Left during his time as the top commander during the war in Iraq.
I think that is the thing that strikes me as most ironic. A President loved by the left bringing in someone they hate to lead the war in Afghanistan.
Mission Possible: 1, 5, 7, 9
1Just thought I’d give an update on my 2009 Goals post.
I finished the Obama Nation probably in either late January or early February. Scary stuff. A big part of means wants to say, “I told you so,” when it comes to Obama. It seems to the he wants us all to be completely dependent on the federal government, and that is a scary place to be, but I digress.
I would say that we are most of the way to goal #5 – successfully training Schrute. He’s learned sit, stay, lay down, up, and he can also give high fives. He still has his moments, but we keep reminding ourselves that he’s only a little over 6 months old. Although he looks like an adult dog, he’s far from it.
I beat COD: World at War probably two weeks ago now. It was a really fun game, until the last couple of levels. I got stuck on the last level more times than I can even remember, but it was still a great game.
I’ve been learning a lot more .NET at work recently. I helped out with the redesign of DeliveryMaps.com and MarketMaps.com over the last couple of months. Both sites use the .NET 3.5 framework. My friends Terry and Milton from work have been very patient in explaining the ins and outs of LINQ, handlers, master pages, and the like.
For those of you keeping score at home, that’s 5 goals down, 5 to go.
Irony
0Does anyone else find it funny that President Obama is echoing John McCain’s September 2008 claims that, “the fundamentals of our economy our strong”?
See, back then, Obama wanted the economy to not be strong, to help him get elected. Now that he’s in, and the economy is in the tank, he needs to convince everyone that everything is just hunky dory.
Ironic…
Stimulus Breakdown
0If you care where your “stimulus” money is being spent – and you should – you can check out my Google Spreadsheet.
Biggest Pet Peeve
2My biggest pet peeve is when people do not pay any sort of respect during the national anthem. It really irks me to no end.
Just read today that is part of the US code that you must put your hand over your heart when the anthem is played and a flag is visible.
What are some of your pet peeves ?
Stimulus Insanity
2The Senate is poised to pass another stimulus package at some point this week.
I’m no Economist, but it seems that these bailouts are never going to end, and we are just setting ourselves up for disaster, instead of letting the free market take care of things. Yes, it would be painful, but I believe things would work out in the end. Again, I might be wrong.
Any way, I just got done reading an article on Bloomberg that puts the price tag on all the bailouts over the last couple years to $9.7 TRILLION!!!! If you figure there are about 300 million U.S. citizens, that comes out to a check for the amount of $32,333.33 to every citizen.
Seems like a check that size would most definitely stimulate the economy.
Change We Can Believe In?
0Just thought I’d pass along some examples of “Change We Can Believe In”
- Al Franken steals the Minnesota Senate election – how can I use the word steal? Well, here’s just one example. During the recount there were at least two instances where the recount totals didn’t match the election night totals. In one instance the board took the recount total, and in the other instance they took the election night total. It doesn’t take much to figure out that something is fishy there. Oh, in each instance the total favored Franken – how convenient.
- Impeached Governor Rod Blagojevich appoints Roland Burris to fill Barrack Obama’s vacant Senate seat – I’m not even sure where to start on this one. There is so much improper behavior here it’s not even funny. Never mind that Blagojevich was just impeached and will most likely face criminal charges, in our new Senate that’s not an issue at all, “come on in.”
- Obama’s “Climate Czar”, Carol Browner, is a leader of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society – Oh, they just favor global governance and think that rich countries should shrink their wealth in order to combat global climate change. Oh, by the way, global sea ice ended this year at the same level it was in 1979.
If you find yourself in a much different and much worse America in 2012 or 2016 than you did on January 20, 2009, don’t be too surprised.