I guess I am still judgmental.

It strikes me today that I used to wonder how any one could be a Christian and a democrat.  Today I wonder how anyone could be a Christian and oppose health coverage for 32 million uninsured.  Lord, save me from my self-righteousness.


(Now I am afraid to allow comments on this post, given the rancor in the comments I have seen on Facebook. Will people honor that this is confessional or will they jump on the politics?  We shall see.)

If we were in charge?

What would the country look like if we (Christians) were in charge? If we had our way with everything what would it look like?

In an interview with The Minnesota Independent, Jeff Sharlet uses her association with the Assemblies of God to paint Sarah Palin as a militant Theocrat.

They actually don’t think they’re theocratic. And they have a way of getting out of that: Theocratic would be if I was a clergy person and sat down and studied the Bible and said, Okay, I’m going to pass this law because in my wisdom, I have seen this in the Bible.

That’s not what they do. They turn themselves over to the spirit. The movement she’s a part of is really holy ghost-powered. What they say is, they’re just being a vessel. A term that a wonky theologian might use is “theo-centric.”

I hope my man Barack Obama, as a man of faith, a man of prayer, would also listen to God. Does that make a person crazy or a theocrat? Does that mean that one has to be militant and intolerant?

Apparently the Assemblies of God is getting a lot of press off of Palin. From the way the A/G is portrayed I wonder 'am I'm in the same church?' I happen to be an Assemblies of God pastor and a democrat supporting Obama. How does that fit the caricature painted in the media? Rich Tatum wrote an introduction to the Assemblies of God for Christianity Today to answer some of the media imprecations.

democrats.com show a video clip from Sarah Palin speaking at a Master's Commission service. Master's Commission is a discipleship program for college age kids to give hands on training for ministry. democrats.com then applies this quote:

If you read the Vision statement (under About), you'll see:

To see young men be men who are not afraid to lead and are violent in their pursuit of righteousness

What exactly does that mean? What kind of violence are the young men being trained and encouraged to engage in?

The website that they reference is not the Assemblies of God Master's Commission but a different discipleship program from Christ Church Kirkland. They seem to have a very different theology. I hope that the wording in their vision statement is simply unfortunate.

Are voices like Sharlet and the "aggressive progressives" at democrats.com right? Is there much to fear?

Perhaps there is some temptation.

We would like things to line up with the Bible, wouldn't we? The temptation is to make the laws of the land the same as the laws of God for living. To make the holy life the only legal life. The religious right is already advocating moral legislation like this. What would it look like taken to the extreme?

Last night Elaine and I watch V for Vendetta. Would the world in which the characters live be what we Christians would create? Would the Koran be banned, owning one a criminal offense? Would homosexuality be made illegal? Would homosexuals be rounded up, imprisoned or killed? What of Justice and Mercy?

Oh God, save us from our distorted view of righteousness. Your ways are higher than our ways, your thoughts are greater. Only you can rule in righteousness with out corruption. Help we, who are progressive, to love mercy even more than change. Help we, who are Christians, to keep love before all else.

Yes we can

As one twitterer said on Super Tuesday, "Barak is so effortlessly inspiring."

Assembly of God church offering refuge is burned in Kenya

A Kenyan man stands beside the burnt remains of the Kenya Assemblies of God Church in Eldoret, 01 January 2007. A mob angry at Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election burnt alive 35 people today who were sheltering in a church from tribal clashes, police and the Red Cross said. "At least 35 people were burned to death in the church, some of them beyond recognition. They included women and children," Kenya's top Red Cross official told AFP. 4:43 p.m. ET, 1/1/08

updated 5:18 p.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 1, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya - A mob torched a church where hundreds had sought refuge Tuesday, and witnesses said dozens of people — including children — were burned alive or hacked to death with machetes in ethnic violence that followed Kenya’s disputed election.

The killing of up to 50 ethnic Kikuyus in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret brought the death toll from four days of rioting to more than 275, raising fears of further unrest in what has been one of Africa’s most stable democracies.

Dear God,
May your justice reign in Kenya. Bring your peace and life.

Answer to those who question Barack Obama's Christian Experience

BarackObama.com | Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, And Is a Committed Christian

Open Letter from Religious Leaders Supporting Obama

Resisting Evil

I drove over to the court house in Bad Axe Tuesday morning. I had received a subpoena to testify against the peeping tom we had a couple months ago. I didn’t know what I would say, or what I’d be asked. I didn’t even know he was there until the police knocked on the door near midnight and told me our neighbors had caught him looking in our family room window. Thank goodness everyone was asleep but me. I dragged myself out of bed early and drove the half hour to Bad Axe. I went in to discover the man had plead guilty the day before, no plea deal, just plead guilty. The prosecutor’s office had tried to get a hold of us, but since the phone is in the church’s name, we’re hard to find.

The prosecutor shook my hand, thanking me for making the trip out there for nothing, and said, “If it wasn’t for people like you, cases like this wouldn’t happen. I really mean that.”

Now I assume that he meant that with out people taking the legal process seriously people wouldn’t just plead guilty. But I could be wrong. Perhaps if it wasn’t for people like me there wouldn’t be peeping toms. That either means I am pretty darn attractive, or some how otherwise inviting evil.

So having traveled all the way out there, and afraid I’d fall asleep on the way home, I went over to the little coffeehouse in bad axe and had some Kenya AA while I read Tolstoy’s “My Religion”.

Tolstoy tells that one of his great revelations was in Matthew 5:39 “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” He had never seen “resist not evil,” there before. His culture and ours highly values resisting evil.

Tolstoy even suggests that as Christians we ought not sit in judgment in courts and tribunals as I was supposed to do that morning. I’m still trying to process the tension between this principle and the stream of social justice. Foster writes about how Jesus embodied the social justice tradition.

Yes, says Jesus, the messianic kingdom of perpetual Jubilee is indeed coming, but in a way that no one would have guessed. People, especially the Zealots, had been looking for military conquest. But Jesus flatly rejects the Zealot option and shows instead another kingdom and another power-the kingdom of love and the power of divine community.

So we aren’t to resist evil, but rather we are to overcome it with a new kingdom. This is what Willard calls the divine conspiracy, and it does not come through legislation, force, opposition or power but through love, vulnerability and righteousness.

An Epistle I Recieved from an old friend

christopher, an apostle of christ,

i firmly believe in the continuing grace of our Lord and have been inspired through prayer and constant meditation to dispatch countless messages over the passing years towards to end of reinstigating the tradition of letter-writing amongs the churches.

many times i have felt compelled to write you such letters but have felt fettered by my lack of knowledge concerning your current spiritual state of being.

a great Evil has spread itself upon this earth, as indicated by our scriptures.

false prophets are among us.

we live in a world, and specifically a nation, of christians, and yet, our Faith in our Lord has been twisted to suit the desires of those who we should rightfully call our enemies.

I speak not of other cultures and faiths.

I speak of men of great power who profess a devotion to Christ, but who also seem to have a tendency to drop high powered explosives on people they've NEVER WITNESSED TO or met face to face.

In light of the current events in this world, i have found myself entirely devoted to a reinterpretation of INTERPRETATION of scripture.

For far too long have the proponents of false doctrines been the gatekeepers of our Lord's compassion. Their love is weak and spread too thinly across too much unbroken bread. Their COMMUNION is mere ritual, NOT spiritual and communal experience.

The Promise of our Lord does not reside in the petty affiliations of secular rulers of modern nations, regardless of the extent to which they profess OUR faith for the sake of THEIR election to national privilege.

They profane the name of our Lord through their murder and conquest.

They dare to speak His name and recite his scripture in their speeches and public addresses.

The time has come for all true believers to separate themselves from the lesser, human aspects of spiritual history.

You and I, Christopher, as heralds of His Word, MUST feel obligated to speak the truth.

The so-called Christians of the present era are NOT sacrificing themselves for the sake of martyrdom before the eyes of Roman patricians.

They are NOT dying upon the sands of Coliseums.

They are hypnotized by glowing-machine-pictures to the point of believing the exact inversion of our Lord's sacred Word.

The most immoral and profane of rulers has defiled our faith by invoking Christ's name to further the greedy cause of conquest and invasion as prophesied in the texts that we share and value.

I for one will not stand by idly as the virtue of our Lord is desecrated by the rulers of this new pagan Rome.

I request that you pray and mediate ceaselessly, as I'm sure you are doing, concerning the matters that I have now addressed through the modern means made available by the progress afforded by the governance and glory of our Lord.

I do not hesitate in admitting that I have spent the past few years in service to my own devotion. My prayers and worship have been endless and strong, and yet they were self-directed.

The Lord has ripped me from this self-indulgence and charged me with confronting my fellow Christians with the message He has given me.

Please share this word with those you trust and with those you know to hold Christ's name and glory above present historical and cultural circumstances.

Our ranks have been infiltrated by machine-image Chaldeans, false prophets, and politicians eager to gain favor through adherence to the local imperial cult.

I have not known your company or voice for quite some time, but trust that we have remained united in Christ and remember that your mission is NEVER complete until your hair is grey, your belly is sagging, your voice is spent, and your body is destroyed-

your physical form ruined not through torture and tribulation as our former historical churches have experienced at the hands of mad imperial power,

but through the joyous proclamation of Christ's Love and Divinity!

I am not instructing you to do anything, for i acknowledge your senior knowledge in such affairs, but I would invite you to use whatever means available to spread this word that I have sent you.

Speak it to a single love you trust, or even go so far as to read these words to a small group of close friends.

Either way, it is of no concern.

Our union with Christ in Eternity is promised.

Considering this, all ventures yield value and spiritual profit, and yet are forced to stand in a relative awe before the absolute of the One and Only.

In closing i will say that if troubles come upon you, remember these words:

No imperial sword may pierce the breastplate of His righteousness, which adorns the body of all who profess.

No worldly affliction possesses the power necessary to invalidate OUR FAITH in Christ, regardless of the lies of conquerers and thieves.

In closing I can only say, in love and devotion to you through Christ, that I would gladly meet you upon Roman sands and contest the might of hungry lions, singing praises to our Lord before the mortal gaze of any earthly false emperor!

Let he who doubts these words meet us both in Eternity and present any and all objections!

May our deeds be deemed worthy upon His return. SELAH!

Jacob Eckstein

My jouney with Che

The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition)

by Walter Salles

Traveling with Ernesto Guevara through his America, seeing the injustice of the human experience through his eyes is enough to make a revolutionary out of any of us. I long to change… the world? Is that too pretentious? I ache to make the kingdom of God real on earth. Perhaps that is where Che and I depart. I hope that a change can be made without guns.

See more about The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition)

Left-Right politics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I always picture left and right opposite where they should be. I always pictured the spectrum coinciding with the time line. That the right wing (in my mind right was on the left side) was closer to the past, ie. Reactionary; the left, closer to the future. When I discovered my mistake, I wondered where the terms came from. Well here it is:

Left-Right politics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Historical origin of the terms
The terms Left and Right to refer to political affiliation originated early in the French Revolutionary era, and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France, specifically in the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, when the moderate royalist Feuillants sat on the right side of the chamber, while the radical Montagnards sat on the left.
Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum was attitudes towards the ancien r�gime ('old order'). 'The Right' thus implied support for aristocratic, royal, or clerical interests, while 'The Left' implied opposition to the same. At that time, support for laissez-faire capitalism and free markets were regarded as being on the left whereas today in most Western countries these views would be characterized as being on the Right. But even during the French Revolution an extreme left wing called for government intervention in the economy on behalf of the poor."

My vote, the day after

I’m saddened today. The election results have left me confused. I am confused about what it means to be a Christian in a political world. I grew up a republican, but over the last few years I have abandoned the grand old party.

No party really represents my values. As a Christian I feel I must take elements from both. Middle of the road? Yes, but those middle of the road politicians take the opposite elements that I would. Perhaps the continuum from conservative to liberal is a circle, and I am on the other side of the circle from the moderates. What does that make me? A radical moderate? An anti-moderate?

At any rate, I felt this year that being a democrat my values would align on more issues. I mean what do I agree with the Republicans on anyway? The place of Christianity in society. The ending of abortion. To a lesser degree affirming the heterosexual lifestyle.

The democrats share my values when it comes to passive resistance, social justice, gun control, gay rights or any other civil right, environmental stewardship, humanitarian aide, education funding, and they don’t presume to legislate a change of heart. I figured that if I was going to let any group suffer it should be me. Let them take on the Christians. Bring some persecution, through defeat we find victory.

But those damned Christians came out to “vote their values” and wound up with Bush for four more years. God where will that take us? I trust you. I do.

Does this mean that I was wrong to look to extend mercy, grace and justice in your name? Does this mean that Christians around the country have confused biblical values with political conservatism?

Maybe, but God you are in control, aren’t you. I trust you, I do.

What do I do now? I will go on promoting biblical values here, bring social justice by my own hand where I can, and continue to engage system.

Viva la resistance!

money, money, money, money.

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 822,871,928 richest person on earth!

Ah ... money. What I could do without it.

In meditating on money check out the Gospel of Suply Side Jesus.

Life without local news?

Local CBS affiliate WNEM TV5 recently aired a commercial asking: what would life be like with out local news? How would you know what is happening in the state, where would you get information about storms?

I suggest that life would be better with out local news. Instead of sound bites and sensational hooks to keep us watching we could find news by reading in depth articles from papers that take their responsibility seriously (which is rare these days). We could also get a vast amount of world news that is missed by rating-centric TV news from reputable sources like NPR. A simple weather radio would keep us safe, especially when the power goes out.

All in all local TV news is not necessary. If our news was not predigested bites recycled on every channel, peppered with video press releases, I think we would have a shot at being a well informed people.