April 2007 Archives

Today Tony Snow returned to stand in front of the White House press corps. Don't go writing any obituaries for him just yet. After his quick intro of the day he took the time to talk about his journey this past month saying at the end, "you've got to realize you've got the gift of life, so make the most of it. And that is my view, and I'm going to make the most of my time with you."

We should all stand up and applaud Tony and his wife and his kids. They are the living embodiment of courage. This past weekend at his college reunion he spoke even more powerful words:

"God hasn't promised us tomorrow, but he has promised us eternity."

Oh to live like that every day. That, I have come to realize, is impossible. It is too hard to say that I am going to live every day of the rest of my life with such radical purpose and clarity that it will have been a great last day should that be true. But it is possible to live that way for the next minute and the next hour and even for the next day. That though is all that God wants of us. James puts it this way in the fourth verse of the fourth chapter: "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow" No, we don't but we do know what we can do today. Amen.

...it didn't take long for the attacks to start. Catholic whiner (a factual rather than a judgmental term) Bill Donohue has sent around a blast email on the Obama article titled, "Obama - Theocrat?":

“If the same standard that was applied to President George W. Bush were to be applied to Senator Barack Obama, then Obama must be considered a theocrat who shows no respect for separation of church and state. What else is one to conclude after seeing a color photo of him today on the front page of the New York Times preaching from the pulpit of a Christian church? The article itself is even more indicting.

...Obama can begin his presidential campaign with ‘Giving all praise and honor to God,’ and it doesn’t raise an eyebrow among the guardians of church and state. But when Bush said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, the guardians went ballistic. Indeed, Obama can compare himself to Joshua, and no one blinks.

Yesterday, Obama blasted the Bush administration’s handling on the war in Iraq while preaching at a Christian church. Now imagine a pro-life Republican candidate speaking at a Catholic Church denouncing the Democrats for supporting partial-birth abortions. And imagine the reaction he would receive if there were a color photo of him on the front page of the New York Times speaking at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The double standard is nauseous, and it smacks of religious and racial prejudice.

Oh please. Stop the whining. No administration in recent history has been more manipulative of faith than the Bush Administration. President Bush, a man of sincere faith, talks about his faith all the time. If anything Americans have been ill-served by a press that hasn't explored his manipulation of faith for his political ends nearly enough. This old, old, old whine that, "Wah, Wah, we are being discriminated against," is old and pathetic. Conservative Christians in the public arena aren't being discriminated against any more than any group in the public square gets challenged and criticized and attacked. Such is the nature of the public square, such is the nature of a public debate. Deal with it and start trying to figure out why so many Christians are bailing on the religious right and the Republican party. Hint - it is because they are sick of seeing Jesus manipulated for political ends. And a word to Democrats eager for the "faith vote" - don't think that you can just mention the name of Jesus, prop yourself up in a pulpit and expect to win elections. Don't manipulate God for your own political ends because neither God nor religious voters will be happy.

There is an enormous story in today's New York Times about Sen. Barack Obama's faith and his relationship with his controversial minister. It is (or should be) politically insignificant. It is theologically controversial.

The story doesn't recount anything particularly new about Obama's faith. It recounts his conversion to Christianity, his relationship with his pastor, his community activism, and the fact that his pastor has become a political liability because of some of his theology.

Interesting, but it should be politically fairly insignificant unless we have decided that there is some sort of religious test for elected office. That, however, was settled a long time ago in the Constitution - Article VI, Sec. 3. No religious tests in America.

Ergo, what we have here is a fascinating theological article and an irrelevant political article.

The theology, however, IS fascinating.

Rev. Wright is a proponent of "black liberation theology, which interprets the Bible as the story of the struggles of black people, whom by virtue of their oppression are better able to understand Scripture than those who have suffered less."

On the Sunday after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later he wrote that the attacks had proved that “people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West went on its merry way of ignoring Black concerns.”

Sen. Obama, according to the article, "admitted [in his book] uncertainty about the afterlife, and 'what existed before the Big Bang.'...emphasizes the communal aspects of religion over the supernatural ones."

These are all huge theological questions. They are questions of God's sovereignty, God's preference (or not) for a particular people, the nature and manifestation of evil, the reality of miracles, faith's relevance across racial and cultural and economic lines, and how much faith should motivate political involvement.

As such they should be dealt with theologically. I am eager to hear the discussions about such questions. Perhaps they can appear here on Beliefnet. I'd love to be able to ask Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright some pointed questions about their faith and what they think it means. But such questions and such discussions should have nothing to do with whether anyone should or should not vote for Sen. Obama.

I fear that even now that article is being zipped around evangelical circles and being dissected for attack ads later in the campaign. I fear that some on the secular left are doing the same thing in hopes of taking him down in the primaries. Both approaches are wrong. This isn't about politics, this is about theology.

I've been away. I didn't mean for there to be a blog gap, however. For the past few days I was off on a father-daughter trip with... here comes the shocker... my daughter Rachel. She's 9 and tender and kind and beautiful and thoughtful and there is so much that goes on beneath the surface that she allows people to see. She is young and she is old and I always have to remind myself that she is 9. Some months ago she asked me why it was that I didn't jog anymore.

We were driving in the car and the question came out of nowhere (at least it did for me). At the moment I had the chance to be honest or to lie. The lie would have been to say that I was being lazy and hadn't gotten around to it. The truth was that for whatever bizarre reason, when I walked and ran, I often times had a small seizure in my left leg and that had lead me to stop running. I told her the truth. She would have known a lie. And she just said, "Ah" and moved on. To her little seizures are like sneezes - nothing I can help, nothing to worry about. She's right.

But that is all an aside of a sort.

I took her off to Florida to swim with the dolphins and go on water rides and we both smiled and laughed and were both young. We went down a big water slide time after soaking time after soaking time and it was awesome. I walked a lot and ran some because I can run and walk again. It is the result of medicine and prayers (maybe not in that order). And when I ran and walked she smiled. She smiled more when she beat me in races.

Over time I will probably write more about the trip.

For now I am just writing to say that I am back and I am reminded (again) why I started this blog. I did it because it is a way for me to extend the message of my book and it is a place for me to say what I think...duh...but not. It is good that I am reminded because I am aware of how much I have pulled my punches at points, not wanting to be too controversial and not wanting to get smacked by the critics. That, however, isn't living and that isn't being a good steward of the talents and thoughts and opinions God has given me.

And so, in more ways than just typing again, I am back. Don't ever look for me to post on Sundays, however. I have decided I don't email, Internet, or otherwise do work-type things on Sunday. I think it is called a sabbath.

Thanks for reading and sharing this journey with me. David

This past Sunday, in our wonderful little church, our pastor stood up and dealt with the hardest questions the previous week dealt. None, perhaps, more jarring than this one - why didn't the killer's gun simply jam during his killing rampage at Virginia Tech? He had known of people saved from death before a firing squad because guns wouldn't fire. Why hadn't such a simple thing happened at Norris Hall?

As I sat there listening to his speak, I kept waiting for that single answer - the explanation for God's ways... it didn't, of course, come. What came instead was something deeper and stronger and better... the recognition of suffering, the acknowledgment of deep questions, the context of God's story as told through the ages...go here to listen and click on the podcast "Questions that define us."

For the past 20 years or so church "progress" and "success" has been measured by a single factor - size. Now, there is a new trend - it isn't about size, it is about reach. This is good news. I...

So American Idol's "Idol Gives Back" is in full swing. In case anyone missed it, American Idol, the wonderfully popular reality/talent show is hosting a two-night charity-oriented event called "Idol Gives Back." The goal is to raise buckets of money...

In the face of death, faith is blossoming at Virginia Tech. The massacre forced people to the only place they could go in light of the horror - to their knees. Said one expert on faith, "The terrible scale of...

My two-year-old daughter Livvy lives in a world without death. Nothing around her - save for the ants we regularly annihilate - has ever died. And even if something did die she wouldn't understand it. Death is completely foreign to...

"Every trial is a blessing. There have been times when I have been hard pressed through circumstances and it seems as if a dozen steamrollers were going over me but I have found that the hardest things are just lifting...

Why isn't there saturation coverage of this man? Why isn't every paper, every website, every magazine and tv show digging into his background? Why isn't his faith being explored and his family too? Why isn't everyone who ever knew him...

As the week end, random thoughts:- No more Cho. If we are what we eat then we are also what we think. We have spent too much time thinking about Cho - about his madness, about... everything. Enough.- More heroes....

We are obsessively trying to figure out what made Cho Seung Hui do it. Why? Because if we don't label it, if we can't categorize it, then the illusion of our safety and the dream of our control are both...

Who freaking cares? John Edwards spent $400 on a haircut. And? So?The point about the haircut, of course, is to highlight (so to speak) two things - First, his vanity and second, his hypocrisy.Let's deal with each. Vanity? Fine. It...

There are no words for this save one - holy....

It was supposed to be this way.In the early 1990s, the pro-life community, on the run after electoral and judicial defeats, chose to target partial-birth abortions because they were so heinous (though exceedingly rare), opposed by so many Americans (approximately...

...from an old friend who teaches fourth graders:"Sadly, my students know every detail, every personal story, have seen every video... there's no innocence left in childhood."...

Turn it off today. Turn off CNN and Fox and MSNBC. Don't go surfing for more information. Don't listen to all the people talking. Don't let the media do it for you.There is this temptation with our saturated news to...

I asked a new friend for her thoughts on the horror at Virginia Tech. They are, as usual, worth reading. She is a teacher and this is what she wrote (unedited but with permission): I picture my classroom - 27...

...and the unconscionable and the unknowable have happened at Virginia Tech...and I have no wisdom. Perhaps that is because there is none to be had. All we know are intermittent facts about what happened today. In a year's time we...

...here is a thought. I've been listening to my dear friend's sermons. I encourage, encourage, encourage you to listen to him. But that isn't the point here. The point here is that I have been listening to just one of...

From John Rutherford on Don Imus:The sensible response should have been to use the Imus incident as a springboard for a meaningful discussion on race relations. However, what we got were knee-jerk reactions by people who were quick to take...

From 2008 presidential hopeful Gov. Mike Huckabee‘‘If you said during Bill Clinton’s tenure that his personal behavior mattered and his character mattered and his activities in office and all of those things, if that mattered, you can’t come along now...

I just stumbled upon this review of my book from The American Conservative magazine, not exactly a bastion of left-wing liberalism... some excerpts:The Religious Right has long targeted those many Christians have seen as the devil’s political helpers—Bill Clinton, Ted...

China is now beginning to help counter the monstrous problems in Darfur. Why? US military pressure? Diplomatic pressure? No. Hollywood. Read on....

Hey folks. Patton Dodd here, filling in for DK for the day. Next week I'm traveling to Boston to speak, along with Lauren Winner, at a little event at Boston University entitled "Writing the Spirit." (If you're in the area,...

We are pretty freaking lucky when the person who said, "nappy-headed hos" on air can be the subject of so much attention. We are even luckier when people like Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson can get so much...

There is now a lot of chatter about Prof. Walter F. Murphy here and here....

From Rod Dreher's blog, a scary story. It feels absolutely true - I'm going to try and figure out if it IS true....

What a follow-up to the Joshua Bell story. In that story, while the world famous violinist gave a free concert in the Metro, people were focused more intently on the lottery tickets.Now this story about a $315 million lotter winner....

I'm more and more intrigued by the stories of people who have experienced some of the worst that life has to offer - death of a child, horrible accident, cancer, HIV - and have changed; seriously, radically changed (for the...

From The Washington Post Magazine, an article about one of the world's greatest violinists, his priceless guitar, and an hour playing incognito in a DC metro at rush hour. As I read it I thought not only about this brilliant...

...with significant help from my friend Tom (N.T.) Wright:I caught up with the foreman amongst the tea and scones at the back of the church. He introduced me to his workforce: a brother, a nephew, two or three sons, a...

A very moving interview with her in Newsweek can be found here. Of the many things that touched me deeply was this question:Let's talk about what I think a lot of cancer survivors think of as being almost harder than...

The news about the new Pope's first book is compelling:Rich countries bent on power and profit have mercilessly "plundered and sacked" Africa and other poor regions and exported to them the "cynicism of a world without God," Pope Benedict writes...

A story in The Washington Post this morning on Wal-Mart's lobbying (and other federal lobbying) set me off on a research trail. The Center for Responsive Politics - a non-partisan group - has released a study about lobbying the federal...

It is Holy Week for Christians and there is a lot of chatter about politics. Nothing changes it seems; 2,000 years ago the story was about politics too.This week it is about “the first primary” results for 2008 presidential race....

I never know what to think or how to act during Holy Week. On the one hand I know how the story ends - it ends in resurrection. On the other hand the road to resurrection is unspeakably horrible. I...