Obama

I've been looking for a really good article on the faith of Barack Obama for a while. I've seen a couple that were either too generic or too clearly slanted to be of much use. I don't have time to read his books (my reading pile is so large I won't be finished it by next year's elections), but I was interested in the faith that he mentions. Is it "of course I'm a Christian" cultural faith? Is it "I'm running for office and therefore need to go to church" political faith? Is it the real deal?

This article in the New York Times is the most balanced thing I've seen so far. It's still hard to know what's going on in his heart, but at least this article pulls together different snippets from other articles and addresses some of the issues.

I highly recommend reading it.

In reading the article I thought of the article in Newsweek last fall that traced the relationship between the evangelical church and politics. The pattern of groups gaining favor with the evangelical church, getting in bed with politicians to advance their agenda and then having a harsh fall is pretty well documented in the article.

Now we see Obama moving towards power and preaching at Saddleback Church, working with Jim Wallis and speaking at his own super church. I'm all for a truly dedicated man of God being in power, but I think we have to look long and hard at the man, determining if this is really "of God" and then look at what the costs are of getting that close to power. History indicates that those who get close to power get burned.

If you haven't read the NYT or Newsweek articles, I strongly encourage you to take a look. I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts on the faith of the 2008 candidates.

Truth by Committee

Have you had one of those experiences when you read the title of a blog entry and you do a little dance of joy? I had one of those last night when I checked David Sliker's blog. The entry was The Dangers of Consensus and it pulled together a lot of thoughts that have been running through my head.

Our world decides truth by consensus. Whatever the most people think is what has to be true. For example, global warming. It's on all of our televisions, it must be the most important issue. If most people don't have a problem with abortion, why shouldn't we allow it? All of politics seems to revolve around influencing public opinion to allow politicians to do what they want.

The dangers of this are a whole other blog (how do you establish universal human rights in a moral vacuum? by majority opinion? by the rule of the world superpowers?).

My real concern is this as an issue in the church. The people who are supposed to believe in absolute truth now seem obsessed with the rule of the majority. Our meetings are by congregational vote. We make our decisions by consensus.

Now, I'm not advocating a human dictatorship (absolute power corrupts absolutely), but I don't see anywhere in the Bible where we have a right to air our opinions or that we each have a right to an equal voice in decisions. In fact, in the Beatitudes I see a lifestyle of walking away from your rights and letting God fight for you. Throughout Acts I see a community that valued God's guidance and followed the teachings of those annointed by God. I see no public opinion polls. And before the arrival of the Holy Spirit they used lots, believing that God would control the outcome of the lots.

The thing is that we have the truth. Why do we still stumble around in the dark as if we don't know how to find the truth? Why do we act as if God's leading is just one option in our decision making process? Why do we have to hurry along God's leading by deciding by consensus? If we aren't getting leading, why aren't why looking in to why not? Why are we working on back up plans for God?

I've got this on my brain this week after this week's class in the Omega study where we learned about the final 7 years of the earch and how as the anti-christ brings a false peace and prosperity to the earth. The church will take a stand that will be unpopular and even within the church, the stand against the anti-christ will be unpopular, to take tough stands. If we don't believe in the truth internally, how can we stand for it in the world? If we're more worried about our rights in the church, how can we demonstrate a Sermon on the Mount lifestyle to the outside world? If we don't stand for anything solid now, how will we stand when the heat is on?

Learning From the Past

I came upon this article in Newsweek this week. It looks at the current crisis of evangelicals in the US.

It lays out the historical development of the Evangelical movement in the US and looks at the current tensions. I found it a pretty insightful analysis of what's going on right now between the "Christian right" and new movements that incorporate more social justice traditions. I think they correctly point out that we're at another key moment of change, so I think it's a good time to look at the issues and figure out where we stand, especially in light of my small group's current study of the Sermon on the Mount.

Unfortunately, it seems like we don't learn from our mistakes and continue pursuing political power and the expense of the truth.