The Politics of Jesus

It’s an election year, so it’s no surprise that everyone is getting all up into a huff trying to defend their own pet political positions. My personal favorites are the socialist statists who think that having a massive federal institution like Medicare or Medicaid is what Jesus had in mind when he said “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Let me make sure I’ve got this straight: Jesus wants us to cheer for a Caesar who will take care of “the least of these” on our behalf so we don’t have to get involved? If I’m to take Jesus seriously here (which I have no reason not to do), someone who champions Medicaid in Jesus’ name is handing Jesus over to the authorities to be dealt with by the professionals. Now, maybe I’m reading too much into that, but it seems to me that didn’t go very well last time.

I read a verse like that and I am cut to the heart because I know that I haven’t done what I ought, and I know that I can’t take a shortcut by voting for the guy who says the right thing or cheering at a rally or wearing the right colored ribbon. I have to get involved. I have to walk down the street and treat the homeless drunk on the sidewalk like a human being. I have to give my own money to a starving child in Honduras. I have to be ready to be a safety net (as in, a roof and warm meals and love and support and counsel and friendship) for my family or friends when they get sick, lose a job, get shipwrecked. I can’t pretend that I’m “doing it unto Jesus” by sloughing it off on a faceless bureaucracy. I have to give, I have to see, I have to touch, I have to participate.

HT: Douglas Wilson and an unnamed Christian sister at work who prompted me to write this.

Free Music (Legal and Doesn’t Suck!) from c3worship.com

The latest C3USA worship album, It All Comes Back To You, is available to download — for free — from www.c3worship.com. Some infectious grooves and amp-kicking tracks, performed and produced by some of the best musical minds in the movement. So go get some free music, then tell your friends, and tell them to tell their friends. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get a track on the next one…

“I absolutely refuse to be dogmatic”

Simon McIntyre is pretty much always worth listening to:

http://www.c3iglobal.org/NEWS/IRefuse2/tabid/137/Default.aspx

On a less-light note, I’m reading Rob Bell’s second book, “SEX GOD”, and so far have been less than impressed. See my review-in-progress.

Update: Well, it looks like the c3i global web site overwrote the article with a new one.  Sorry I didn’t save a copy, and I can’t find a link to the old text anywhere.

Must-See Movie

Ben Stein is turning out a new flick in February that should ruffle some feathers. Imagine “Farenheit 911″ except done by someone with an understanding of the subject matter and a reputation for intellectual honesty.

Personally, I’m pretty sick of watching objections to Darwinistic orthodoxy get dismissed out-of-hand by atheistic dogmatists holding “Ph.D.”s without a lick of philosophy in them and media pundits who lack even the must cursory understanding of science, scientism, and epistemology. I’m pretty excited to see Stein bring a fair representation of the loyal opposition to the masses.

More light reading, if you’re interested:

• Uncommon Descent
• Post-Darwinist

I’ll say it again…

Death to DRM!

Materialistic naturalism, peer review, being “scientific”, etc.

I work with a lot of smart people.  Many of them hold an unhealthy exaltation of “science” as “truth” without having a very deep understanding of what “science” or “truth” mean, the deep and ongoing epistemological debate behind such questions, etc.  For example, many believe that peer reviewed journals are some sort of standard-bearer of what the enlightened scientific-minded citizen should belive.  But peer review is neither a guarantor of quality nor a useful means for introducing newer, “truer” scientific ideas.

Some light reading on the merits of Fred Thompson…

Good stuff for your newsreader: Fred Thompson Facts.

PS: Clinton: Marriage Saved by Faith, Power Lust

Guess I’m yawing a bit to the right today.

Respectable Internet Establishments

Let me just say this: Digg has some guts, and my respect for them has just increased dramatically.

Death to DRM. There, I said it.

Update 5/16: I’ll say it again.  Death to DRM.

Thoughts on Virginia Tech

Since we are, in fact, somewhere below the internet noise floor and I doubt this post will get much attention, I’m going to make my first public link to my latest under-wraps project, Neoredemptive. Neoredemptive is a wiki where I’m trying to put together thoughts on being scriptural, evangelical, charismatic, covanental, missional, and practical, along with a few other adectives, all at once. I’ve posted some thoughts on the events of last week at Virginia Tech, trying to look at things through the lens of the gospel and of the church’s call to be counter-cultural — to engage with the events and questions of the day (to avoid becoming ghettoized) while offering a critique of it (to avoid being co-opted) and encarnating a better alternative (to avoid being indistinguishable).

I’ll duplicate my last point here, because I think it bears repeating:

Local churches should take this opportunity to assess whether and how they would be able to respond to a sudden tragedy of this kind in their own area, not because of emotional opportunism to win converts, but out of a genuine concern for the lives that have been ended, torn, and bruised by evil, their desire to do so being a natural product of Jesus’ loving compassion for us. Do we, as an organizational church and as individuals each embodying and representing “the church” in our day-to-day lives, have the nerve to engage with tragedy counter-culturally — lovingly and compassionately engaging with the reality of the event without compromising the unflinching truth of the Gospel? Can we honestly say we are ready to step into such a situation and talk about a truly good God in the midst of excruciating tragedy?

On a more personal note, as someone who once aspired to academia (and sometimes ponders returning), I’m disturbed by what looks to me like Mr. Winset getting the politically-correct left-foot-of-fellowship from Emmanuel College. Is “WASP” now a derogatory racial ephitet (the supposed cause of his firing)? If so, let me say publicly that — as a WASP — I don’t want to be protected from that, especially by a so-called “liberal arts” college (the ilk of which have historically played no small part in fostering our current culture of anti-WASP-ism).

Daily Stuff (note: NOT a daily feature)

Today’s tunes: “Jump Around” by House of Pain and “Come Back to Bed” by John Mayer.

Today’s favorite blog post: The Big Lie — sounds like the same drum I like to beat.  “There is one God, and you are not him.”

Today’s homebrew Java hack: PeekableLRUMap (builds upon Jakarta Commons collection LRUMap) — peek(Object k) allows the client to examine an object in the map without treating it as a “use” (and  thereby moving it to the front the the LRU queue).  Needed it to optimize a use case where you want to find and use the “best” of several potential matches in the Map and don’t want to inflate the “use” pattern for the less-than-best entries.

Today’s book: The Musical from the Inside Out

Today’s stock pick: My employer’s, of course, since I got a big stock grant bonus this year