So I've been on quite the blogging hiatus lately. I've been traveling quite a bit this summer, to the streets of Philadelphia with some amazing people for a weekend mission, to Kansas City for some youth ministry observation/spiritual retreat and of course to Malawi, Africa. Other than the travel I've tried to take it easy this summer and take some Sabbath before youth group kicks off again this Fall. I know that many of you have been waiting for me to blog about Africa, and believe me that's coming. I want to do it justice and be thoughtful in how I write those posts... so be patient, they're coming.

But that brings me to tonight's post. One thing I inherited from my parents was an intense interest in politics. And despite my intention to abstain from this election, I'm still watching a lot of political coverage and am interested in the race. Last week Kara and I watched Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention and were very impressed by it. Barack's vision for America is one that seems healthy for the country and fair to "the least of these." The last part of the speech where he spoke about moving beyond the partisan extremisim and towards a shared common purpose was SO GOOD.

And as a political junkie and one who is committed to being fair and non-partisan I tuned in tonight to see Sara Palin and others speak. I thought Huckabee's speech was fair and decent for the most part. Huckabee has been consistent and dependable in not getting into dirty politics and I respect him for it. Romney and Giuliani were another story. I felt like their speeches were the kind of dishonest partisan speeches that are more demonizing the opponent than speaking about what they're for... and I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of it when Democrats do it and I'm tired of it when Republicans do it. Because Romney's speech came first it's the one that I was the most upset with so I thought I'd just vent publicly a bit tonight. I'm including a few of his most troubling quotes and my responses to them here. His speech is in red and is indented.

Click here for the full text of Mitt Romney's speech.

Last week, the Democrats talked about change. But let me ask you - what do you think Washington is right now, liberal or conservative? Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitution rights? It's liberal!

The people in Guantanamo Bay are HUMAN BEINGS. Human beings, who like Americans deserve the right to habeas corpus. How can we ever tell if those human beings are terrorists if they are never charged and are never allowed to see the evidence against them? Is Mitt Romney against trying suspected criminals? Does Mitt Romney think you are guilty as long as George W. Bush thinks you're guilty? Does he think that if you aren't born in the United States you should not be "rewarded" with basic human rights?

And I'll say this, YES, it IS liberal to extend all human beings basic human rights. It IS liberal to try suspected criminals instead of capturing people from all over the world and then locking them up indefinitely. Those are liberal principles. Principles the United States was founded on.

Is a Congress liberal or conservative that stops nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, making us more and more dependent on Middle East tyrants? It's liberal!

It seems to me that investing in renewable, green energy is the best way to break the addiction to foreign oil... and OIL in general. I don't see Republicans wanting to break the addiction to oil, just the addiction to oil from other places. Drilling offshore will only bring that oil online in TEN YEARS. It's a commitment to a dying form of energy in a time when we need to be moving towards the future of energy.

Is government spending - excluding inflation - liberal or conservative if it doubles since 1980? It's liberal!

Does spending billions and billions on invading foreign countries factor into government spending? Does spending 50% of the nation's budget on the military factor into government spending? Let's just be honest about the ENTIRE budget. If we weren't spending billions on new ways to kill people we'd have enough to pay teachers more AND lower taxes.

We need change all right - change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington - throw out the big government liberals and elect John McCain!

Who has been running all three branches of the government for 6 of the past 8 years? Hmmm, it's conservatives. Now they only have 2 of the 3 branches of government and they're complaining as if they were in exile!

They think we have the biggest and strongest economy in the world because of our government. They're wrong. America is strong because of the ingenuity and entrepreneurship and hard work of the American people.

Straw man argument. I've never heard a Democrat say that, and Mitt Romney is not a mind-reader.

We strengthen our people and our economy when we preserve and promote opportunity. Opportunity is what lets hope become reality.

Yes, when it's promoting opportunity for citizens. We don't need any more "opportunity" for Exxon.

Opportunity expands when there is excellence and choice in education, when taxes are lowered, when every citizen has affordable, portable health insurance, and when constitutional freedoms are preserved.

Constitutional freedoms? Like the ones Bush has trampled on?

Liberals would replace opportunity with dependency on government largesse. They grow government and raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid, to take work requirements out of welfare, and to grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all. Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity.

Straw man argument again. Obama has worked on programs moving people from welfare to work.

It's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother!

Big Brother? Like wire-tapping? Sounds like Bush to me.

Did you hear any Democrats talk last week about the threat from radical, violent Jihad? Republicans believe that there is good and evil in the world. Ronald Reagan called-out the Evil Empire. George Bush labeled the terror-sponsor states the Axis of Evil.

Democrats talk about "fighting terrorism" but no, they don't use your unhelpful and ever evolving scare-tactic labels. Implying that Democrats don't talk about fighting terrorism just because they don't say "radical violent Jihad" or "extremist militant Islam" or whatever is misleading.

And at Saddleback, after Barack Obama dodged and ducked every direct question, John McCain hit the nail on the head: radical violent Islam is evil, and he will defeat it!

Dodging and ducking every direct question? More like being thoughtful and reflective... and humble. And seriously, John McCain is going to defeat a religious movement? Are you kidding me?

Republicans prefer straight talk to politically correct talk!

Then why does the Defense Department call dead Iraqi civilians "collateral damage?"

To this we are all dedicated and I firmly believe, by the providence of the Almighty, that we will succeed.

President McCain and Vice President Palin will keep America as it has always been - the hope of the world.

In the span of two sentences Romney invokes God and then says that America, this country at this point in time is the "hope of the world." (Which by the way Obama says too) That is just so wrong. The Kingdom of God is the hope of the world, and the Kingdom of God is NOT the United States. When Romney and others say this, they're worshiping themselves.

All this devotion to America and the flag is in effect a way to worship ourselves and worship what we stand for. It's idolatry.

Labels: Politics, Theology

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It's election year and once again I find myself rethinking what it means to be Christian in the midst of presidential campaign season. But before I get into what I'm currently thinking I'd like to take just a moment to rewind and give you a quick history of me, my faith and presidential elections. I realize it's a short history but nonetheless...

2000
This was the first presidential election I was old enough to vote in. In the primary I was rooting for Dan Quayle and in the general election I voted for George W. Bush. And let me tell you, I voted FOR Bush. It wasn't an ambivalent vote or a "lesser of two evils" vote. I believed in George W. Bush. I thought he was going to be great. I had a big cut out of his head taped down in my CD case along with other pop-culture paraphernalia. While I never saw Al Gore as "unChristian" (he's Baptist) I definitely understood Bush to be the "Christian candidate." This was my freshman year in college and I was still deeply influenced by a fundamentalist understanding of Christianity. As I walked through the halls of the Christian ministry department at my college I saw that one professors had a Clinton/Gore bumper sticker on their door. It shocked me. I had never encountered a Christian who was "pro-Clinton." Another professor had a sign in his office saying "Jesus was a Liberal." At this point in my faith and in my college carreer such moments were logic-defying for me.

2004
My second go-round found me much less optimistic than before. My views on politics had changed drastically thanks to Christians like John Howard Yoder - a Mennonite pacifist, Stanley Hauerwas - a Methodist theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer - an underground Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany... and many others. I no longer had any "hope" in the American government, I was becoming more and more enchanted with God's kingdom and God's restoration of creation and at the same time less and less impressed with the American kingdom and it's attempts at fixing the world by dominating it. During this election the driving issues for me were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I shrugged my shoulders and voted for Kerry. I didn't expect Kerry to buy into God's radical plan of change and shalom but he was the "lesser of two evils" from my perspective. So I half-heartedly tossed a vote his way in 2004. Just FYI, Nader wasn't on the ballot in Missouri.

2008
Here we go again, round three. As I've posted before, I don't plan on voting this time. Partly because I was getting really excited about Obama. I kept finding myself really hoping he would become president and bring some fundamental change to our country. It scared me. It was easy to get caught up in the hoopla of Obamania... and lose sight who I really believe will bring fundamental change in the world. Thanks to Obama's subtle shift to the right, I've become much more skeptical of him and am frustrated with enough that I no longer have such temptations. This kind of detached skepticism is where I would want to be as a Christian in the voting process, but at least this year I'm still planning to give away my vote to someone who is voiceless.

More and more I'm beginning to appreciate the political perspective of people like Dr. Martin Luther King. His idea was, don't endorse anybody. Endorsing a candidate just makes it easy for them to count you as a part of their base and then move on and ignore you. Instead, King advocated inviting politicians on both sides to endorse your movement, your platform and to do so all through the campaign and on through their time in office. I think this way guards us from the danger of getting yanked around by parties and also guards us against buying into their agenda as a compromise for the influence we think we have.

Shane Claiborne has a great article about this way of engaging politics as a Christian called "Advise Everyone, Endorse No One." Check it out here. I think Shane's take on it is a healthy blend of King's emphasis on being influential without being co-opted and with a robust skepticism of American politics in light of the Kingdom of God.

Zack Exley over at Revolution in Jesusland recently posted about McLaren and the Matthew 25 Network's endorsement of Obama. While I'm not one to champion Christian groups endorsing (I like Shane's approach better), this is the way to do it if they must.

Labels: Life, Politics, Theology

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Over the years I've encountered several metaphors for sin and how it separates us from God. Here are two common ones.

Sin is a giant chasm that separates us from God.
Sin is a giant wall that separates us from God.

These metaphors are usually accompanied by commentary about how "God can't handle sin," or how "God just can't be in the same room as sin." While I understand the language of separation when talking about sin, I'm finding these metaphors really unhelpful because they limit God, and inevitably make sin the stronger force. I don't think any of us want to say that, but these metaphors imply that. As if to say that sin is something you could use to ward off God, or that sin is God's Kryptonite. I think what we really want to be saying is that sin cannot handle God, or that sin couldn't bear to be in the same room as God, etc.

In light of that, help me to think of some new metaphors that would speak of the separation caused by sin but still have a robust theology of God's dominion. What metaphor would you use?

Labels: Theology, Youth Ministry

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This is a rant I've stored up in my heart long enough that it finally had to come out.

What - is - the - deal... with everyone saying "mepersonally?"

We both know you're not a robot, or a gorilla. It's redundant and it just sounds dumb. So I'll confess, if you say it, I'm probably judging you for it.

Labels: Funny, Life

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(The raft in the middle of the lake, with tent readied for the night. above)

Sunday night at 7:30pm I stepped onto land. For the previous three days I had been residing on a 16'x16' raft with four other friends. Only weeks before our team, who has been praying about and planning for our upcoming trip to Malawi, came up with the idea of doing a big attention-getting fundraiser that would allow our local community to have an impact on and be a blessing to the community of Sakata, Malawi where we will be working.

There are several ways that this money will go directly to the Malawian people to be of assistance. Mosquito nets to help prevent contracting Malaria, building fish ponds for communities to be a sustainable food source as well as a source of income, and building a mission center and repairing a preschool. We were really hoping that we could somehow raise four or five thousand dollars in our efforts. The community's response was mind-blowing! We were so moved by the generosity of passersby, children and people who drove to Allentown just to donate after finding out about our cause from the media. Three kids came up to the booth and emptied their piggy-banks so that kids in Malawi will have a better chance to live. At the time of this post we have raised over $16,000!!!

Life on the raft was, well it was hot. We were fortunate enough to have a large shade canopy above our heads for the duration of our time on the raft. The sun was out for the majority of our time on the lake and we applied copious ammounts of sunscreen in response. We had many many visitors canoe out to us to talk, bring a meal to us, share a meal with us, play some card games or spend some time fishing. We were a floating hospitality barge for the large part of the three days.

But there was plenty of time to enjoy each others company as well. Of the five of us, four are confirmed for the trip to Africa. Our time on the raft together was an invaluable introduction to each other and how our personalities gel. Spending three uninterrupted days together will really tell you a lot about a person, and back on land I have so much more respect and admiration for my teammates. I am humbled by their passion for serving Christ. I am relieved that we are a group that prides itself on laughing at ourselves. I was also moved by a rather deep and controversial discussion we had on the raft about war and following Jesus where teammates with a radically different position than mine were able to have a friendly debate and never for a moment feel as though it would change our friendship or damage how we view each other.

Before the raft I was excited and anxious about going to Malawi and was looking forward to getting to know my teammates a bit better. Now I feel as though these people are family and I am grateful that we will be going on this mission together.

Labels: Life, Travel

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