Growing up

After reading this piece from Shane Claiborne, I decided it was time to fire the blog back up again.

I guess what I want to do is be more disciplined about writing. Namely, I think its time for me to start expressing my ideas and creating dialogue, hopefully with some new people as well as some of the old readers.

I was thinking the other night, about what Jesus meant when he said, “Repent, and believe in me.” I recently read that Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote during and after Jesus’s life, chronicled a story about a military officer with an unruly squad of men. They would not listen, they had their own agendas, and they were not coming together as a cohesive unit. What’s important about this story is that the squad leader, whom, if I remember correctly, was also named Jesus (coincidentally) used the same exact phrase that Jesus did when talking to his troops. But he didn’t mean it the way we’ve commonly come to understand it. I would argue that this is because the way we understand it is wrong.

When Jesus Christ, as well as Jesus the Army commander said “Repent and believe in me” they were telling their listeners to turn away from their own agendas, and follow the way of life of the speaker. This is telling because it gives us a whole new frame of reference for looking at Jesus’s message to his followers. He’s not telling them only to have this personal change of heart and try to stop sinning. He’s calling them to abandon their current worldviews, whether it be that of the Pharisees who believed that through strict adherence to the law, they would eventually be saved (from Rome, not to heaven) or that of the zealots, who believed that if they rose up and started a war, God would swoop in and save them (again, from Rome). Jesus, in telling people to repent and believe in his way of doing things was warning them of the destruction of following their own agendas, of trying to do things the same way everyone else does them. He warned of the hell that was to come if they didn’t repent, namely the destruction of Judiasm and their entire culture and religion that would come with the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70.

And this is where I am right now. I see the financial destruction that looms over our heads every day… I see how we’ve put our trust in our way of doing things, which in the grand scheme of things is better than things have been before, but it is still sinful, and I see Jesus saying “turn away from how you’ve been conditioned and follow me. America may not make it, but the goal isn’t America, the goal is to live the life God intended for you.”

And Jesus and the early church gave us a pretty clear example about what that life looks like. Its one that often times consists of poverty, it is willing to lay down ones life rather than kill to protect your life, its one that proclaims freedom for those who are captive, that shows that the power structures of this world are hell bent on not doing things God’s way, and that our job is to be a prophetic witness against them.

And that’s why, in conclusion, I will not be voting in this, or hopefully any other election. Our salvation does not come from a good government…. because a good government outside of the reign of God does not exist. When we participate in the process, it is essentially endorsing violence and injustice, something that we as Christians should be standing against. Shane says it better than I… so if you haven’t, check out that article.

Twitter is taking away most of my internet time. If you aren’t twitting, you should definitely check it out.

Was over at Harvest Boston, my friend Steve Holt’s blog, and found this interesting deal about the privilege of race and class.

Thanks to Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University for developing the following exercise on race and class.  Feel free to share your results in the comments section or your own blog.  Eye-opening indeed.

(If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.)

Directions: Bold the statements that apply to you.

1. Father went to college.
2. Father finished college.
3. Mother went to college.
4. Mother finished college.
5. Have any relative that is an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher social class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (not until I was a teenager).
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. (I had to buy it from my dad to take it to school with me.)
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.
24. Your parents owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child.
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.
27 Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Lew Rockwell sums it up….. (this is especially for you Jerry)

This article is a must read on why people that call themselves conservatives must take a look at what the Republican Party has become, have a come to Jesus moment, and vote for Bob Barr. I wish people weren’t so blinded by their fear of a ragtag group of Islamic crazies that they couldn’t see that their “conservative” leaders are nothing more than modern fascists.

Money Quote

As for foreign policy, many people believe Bush’s approach has been right-wing.
I regard this as nothing more than a liberal plot to discredit conservatives. The neoconservative foreign policy endorsed by Bush comes directly out of left-wing ideas of internationalism. We right-wingers don’t give a damn about spreading democracy for the simple reason that the democratic will of foreigners is going to be exercised in their interest, not ours.

For those of you who have trouble understanding, this means that forcing a group of people to have a democratic government is, well, not democracy

Most people are dumb. The older I get, the more I realize this.

Its not their fault, at least in total. Television and Radio especially have taught those in our country that there is no room for nuance. The other side of any discussion has nothing relevant to say. And the way to win an argument or debate is not by deconstructing the ideology of the person with whom you are debating, but to drag illogical conclusions from what was said previously. For example:

Student at Ezell Harding: I don’t want to go to Vandy because I don’t agree with their beliefs

Me: What beliefs do you not agree with?

Student: [Silence] You know, their beliefs

Me: Like religious beliefs, cause I’m pretty sure its just a normal Liberal Arts school

Student: Yeah, I don’t like Liberal[ism I’m a conservative….

Me: Well, all schools are Liberal Arts schools, unless they are technical schools. At least that’s my understanding
Student: Well I don’t like Liberals. They don’t support our troops. They are fighting for our freedoms.

Me: Can you not support the troops and disagree with the foreign policy? ( I continue to talk about secular and religious reasons to oppose the war in Iraq)

Student: I saw a quote on facebook that says if you aren’t gonna stand behind our troops, then you should stand in front of them.

Me: That’s a funny little way to tell someone you wish they would just get killed, but it doesn’t answer any of the questions…

I’m finding more and more that this is how these types of conversations go. I don’t know if there has been a shift amongst people, or if I was sheltered to some of that (I admit, that I did say some of those things before, but my argument was a little more nuanced than I seem to be finding these days) but what happened to the Republicans who, you know, were intelligent. Have their given up on their party because its become ideologically bankrupt? Or are people just becoming less intelligent because of mass media?
Any thoughts?

This is what happens…

I can’t seem to understand why people are surprised that when the government tries to force something that the market hasn’t changed on its own, that unintended consequences arise. You cannot legislate a problem away without causing a new problem… and that’s just the best case scenario. Many times, you don’t even fix said problem, and you cause a new one.

We should try a true free market. We’ve never done that before.

We started yesterday, this came out in the Journal today.

Standard of living is gonna be going down for the near and maybe long term. Are you prepared?

Why in the world would converting corn to fuel cause massive price increases in food?

Its called supply and demand. Basic economics. The Ethanol crap needs to stop now. A new energy source will appear when it is economically viable, that’s how capitalism works. Anytime you try to change that, there are unintended consequences. This time, its going to be the starvation of hundreds of millions of people.

Here’s the money quote:

Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million tonnes - nearly a third of the whole projected US crop. American cars now burn enough corn to cover all the import needs of the 82 nations classed by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as “low-income food-deficit countries”. There could scarcely be a better way to starve the poor.

And the hits just keep on comin’

Not really… you’re paying the same. Its just that the government has essentially given the entire country a paycut by inflating the currency to pay for the war, social programs, prescription drugs, etc etc etc. An ounce of Gold buys the same amount of oil now as it did 5 years ago. For those of you who are novices, that means with the amount of currency available in our economy, 3.25 a gallon now is the same as 1.50 a gallon was 5 years ago. It makes sense when you realize that since then, the government has added added almost three trillion dollars to what was a ten trillion dollar economy. They inflate the money supply by 30% and the economy slows down… you got lots of dollars chasing not many goods. Welcome to the Jimmy Carter years… or maybe the new Great Depression.