Author: Frank

Today, Pope Benedict XVI stepped on American soil for the first time. Despite his timing, it is not a political trip in the truest sense but is purely business, speaking at the United Nations marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. See a rundown of his itinerary here.

I’m following this visit with great interest. I grew up Catholic, was a good altar boy (spare the jokes), was Deputy Grand Knight of my campus Knights of Columbus, and saw, within spitting distance, Pope JPII when he visited Denver for World Youth Day. The book “His Holiness” continues to inspire me despite my lapsing from the Catholic faith and embracing what I feel to be a truer (evangelical? fundamentalist?) Christianity. When John Paul the Second passed away, I watched with breathless anticipation the selection of the new Pope, praying that his predecessor would follow his footsteps in leading the Catholic church in a more ecumenical, less traditional direction. While staunchly conservative (not necessarily in the political sense) Catholics cheered the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger I was skeptical of the “Pope’s Rottweiler“. And to be honest, I haven’t followed him much since with the exception of applauding his statements in Regensburg, Germany where he “suggested that Islam had lost its reason and the West had lost its faith.”

So I read with joy this article in Newsweek on the Pope’s evolving role on the world geo-political stage. I’ll be back later with more comments on the article, but encourage you to also follow the Pope’s visit through the On Faith blogs linked here and over on the right.

Well after my post “Coming of Age” the Feds logged my IP and that led them to my compound in Texas.

Ok, not really, but I didn’t want the point I was trying to make to get blurred with the Warren Jeffs craziness that is happening in Texas. For the record, I don’t advocate teenagers having sex although to some degree it should be expected. I also don’t advocate pre-marital sex, so unless I’m advocating marrying teens and preteens, you can’t make the connection.

Which leads me to Jeffs. What they’re doing is wrong. My point about teenagers being mature enough to be held accountable spiritually also means they’re mature enough to be held accountable sexually, but our culture has drawn an artificial line on what is considered sexually appropriate. Now we have to be careful in defining what is acceptable based on social norms, especially with the growing acceptance of homosexuality. But as Christians, we are also required to follow the law of the land unless it violates God’s sovereign will. And presently, that means there are age limitations on when consensual sex is acceptable and also how marriage is defined.

The Fundamental Church of Latter Day Saints is outdated and anathema to the Mormon church. But are their First Amendment rights to worship as they please being infringed upon by their children being taken away? Maybe. You could argue that we still have to follow the law of the land as stated above, but the courts have allowed peyote to be used in Native American worship and there are some “churches” out there who are trying to use that argument to justify smoking pot. How is this different? Technically it’s not. But sex is more taboo in our culture than drug use, despite its glorification in our media. But that taboo is becoming less and less so as our culture advances.

The First Century Church was considered a cult because they didn’t follow the social norms of Rome with regards to monogamy and child rearing. But the Church didn’t change and the culture eventually did. We can only hope and pray the same comes true today, but we’re up against long odds. We need to define our behavior, not by the culture but by the Bible. And in Jeffs‘ case, there’s no Biblical justification for their lifestyle. So for that, they should be shunned both by the mainstream culture and by the mainstream christian church.

Earlier this week I saw two headlines side by side that are worth noting. First is that 1 in 4 teenaged girls carries a sexually transmitted disease. The other is that 17 percent of 6th graders have tried alcohol. Meanwhile, tonight on 20/20, there’s doing a special called “The Age of Consent” to look at the sexual activity of our youth and our culture’s influence and reaction.

The headlines and this show should shock you but probably don’t. All you have to do is look around to see that our children are growing up too fast. But are they really?

Our culture sends mixed messages when it comes to this subject. One of the several articles accompanying the 20/20 special points that out. But I want to point out a few specific examples myself. A few months ago, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that a parental consent abortion law was unconstitutional because it violated youth’s “reproductive freedom.” At the same time, birth control is being made available at middle schools even though the legal age of consent isn’t until high school in most states. Jamie Lynn Spears, Brittany’s 16 year old sister and the star of a “tween” show on Nickelodeon, is pregnant and only faces the wrath of the celebrity media while Genarlow Wilson was in prison for three out of the ten years sentenced for having underage consensual sex and a 13 year old was suspended from school for giving a hug.

Our Christian practice is inconsistant too. I would expect that all Christians would agree on a doctrinal basis, even if they don’t practice it, that sex should wait until marriage. But is there an age that we expect marriage to wait until? Think about Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was likely in her early teens when she was pledged to be married to Joseph. And that wasn’t uncommon for the time. There’s a reason puberty hits when it does, I believe. I really think our society has screwed up what God has created. I believe he created us to have a sexual drive as teenagers, arguably when we are most attractive and physically fit, because that’s when we’re supposed to marry. And I also don’t think it’s coincidence that men peak sexually in their late-teens to early twenties while women peak in their thirties, because sex in marriage is a gift from God and should continue throughout marriage. Yet despite our biology, our society says that you’re not an adult until you’re 18.

But what do our churches say? Most churches that don’t practice infant baptism teach what is called the “age of accountability.” This is when we are mature enough to make our own decision to follow Christ. But it is also when we’re mature enough to understand sin and its consequences and therefore are subject to judgment. What age do most churches consider a child to be accountable to our Lord? Most use 13, based on the definition of adulthood carried over from Jewish tradition. Interestingly, the Mormon Church says 8 and other churches use 7 based on English Common Law–when a child is legally responsible for their actions. While looking this up, I found an interesting argument that the age of accountability should be 20 since that was the cutoff age while the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years.

What does this all mean and what does it have to do with what I posted earlier? Well, if we consider our children to be responsible enough to claim Jesus as their savior, then they should be responsible enough to make decisions about sex and their reproductive freedom. The problem is that subject is taboo for all too many. The biggest argument against parental consent for abortions is that girls would fear punishment from their parents and would therefore not seek an abortion and instead abort their unborn child themselves, risking their lives in the process. And I’m sorry, but if you’re a parent and your child is too afraid to talk about the subject of sex with you then you’re not doing your job. You’re willing to punish your child for having sex yet you allow them to wear what they wear (look around the next time you go to a mall!), watch what they watch (MTV, Gossip Girls, The OC, etc), and listen to what they listen to. Parents need to take an active roll in their children’s sexuality. Be open to communication. Be understanding. Relate. Have compassion. And don’t rely on society to define either morality or adulthood for you. If we’re going to expect our children to behave like adults spiritually, we need to treat them like adults when it comes to these mature subjects.

So it’s been way too long since my last post. I’m not going to take up a lot of space covering what I’ve missed, but I do want to list out the links at least.

Most recently, I read today two articles on faith and environmentalism. In the first, the Vatican describes pollution and other social issues as “new sins”. I get a kick out of equating these new sins with the Seven Deadly Sins. The other is that the Southern Baptist Convention released a declaration that Christians have a biblical duty to stop global warming.

A week ago I saw an article about a researcher suggests that Moses was high when he received the Ten Commandments. This one begs for more comment and I want to get back to it, but that will have to wait for now.

And a little further back, the news was abuzz with the latest poll showing that more than 40 percent of responders have changed their religious affiliation since their childhood. There’s a lot that can be said for this one too, but again hopefully another time.

I saved the best for last. I saw a link to this on a message board and I had to scratch my head. I won’t comment other than say, hey whatever floats your boat.

I have a lot stored up for my next post. Hopefully you won’t have to wait a month for it.

So Dr. James Dobson admitted today that if he had to, he’d vote for either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. Twist his arm if you have to. If you haven’t been keeping track, right before Super Tuesday Dr. Dobson said that he could not in good conscience vote for John McCain and that if he won the nomination the general election “will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime.” And is “convinced that Senator McCain is not a conservative and… has at times sounded more like a member of the other party.” Dr. Dobson vowed that he would not vote for the first time in his life.

I’m not sure what Dr. Dobson’s beef is with Governor Huckabee, a former minister whose policies, while in some respects could be described as populist, is the only candidate who most closely matches the “social conservativism” that is so important to the Religious Right. At the same time, Governor Romney has been claiming all along he’s the most in line with staunch conservatives, although his record as governor would beg to differ. Evangelical leaders have been hesitant to support Romney outright because he’s Mormon. Yet, all evidence from primaries so far show that Huckabee and Romney are splitting the self-described “conservative” and “evangelical” voters.

One thing that is clear though, the evangelical political mouthpieces like Dobson and Tony Perkins absolutely hate John McCain. And this got me thinking, especially after reading Dr. Dobson’s comments. What is so bad about John McCain?

I understand some evangelicals don’t forgive him for calling them “agents of intolerance” in his last run for the White House. But that was more focused towards the “God hates fags” crowd, and in that respect I whole-heartedly agree with him. He also opposed President Bush steamrolling Supreme Court nominees whose sole qualification was what church they went to (Harriet Miers) or that they opposed Roe v Wade. Personally since a Supreme Court justice is on the bench for life, there’s a pretty good chance he or she would hear more cases about subjects other than abortion than on that one issue alone. Yet there’s the clear “lithmus test” that’s existed for Supreme Court justices for years now. I guess as a Christian I should be upset he didn’t vote to restrict embryonic stem cell research (a very grey area ethically, no matter what religion you are), opposes a Constitutional amendment defining marriage (which I believe is an insult to the spirit of that living document), and opposed President Bush’s tax cuts.

Waitaminute. Tax cuts? That’s a religious issue? I guess it is to Dr. Dobson. But I think the real nail in the coffin for McCain is that he is responsible for the McCain-Feingold campaign reform bill. What does campaign reform have to do with religion? Well, opponents claim that it prevents groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council (hmmm, I see a connection) from spending obscene amounts of money in political campaigns. Supporters note that it applies to all special interest groups, and restrictions keep candidates from promising favors in return for financial backing. By the way, to put this in perspective, last week leading up to Super Tuesday it was reported that Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were each spending $1 million A DAY on TV adds. And it was reported today that Clinton “loaned” her campain $5 million. That’s a lot of money that comes from somewhere. And I’d much rather see evangelical organizations spend those kinds of sums on mission work, philanthropy, and local ministry. But Dobson and others feel differently.

There’s a lot of evidence that Dobson and the like don’t have the same influence they had getting President Bush elected. Even so, it’s a dangerous stance for an Ambassador of Christ. Especially considering one of Dr. Dobson’s critiques of John McCain was that he more often than not resembled someone from the “other” party. As if the whole Democratic Party is a bunch of Baal worshipers.

For more on this see this article at Slate and these at the God-o-meter blog at Beliefnet.

To close, I want to remind Christians of their citizenship.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as
his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was
going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a
foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with
him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with
foundations, whose architect and builder is God….

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not
receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a
distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People
who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If
they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had
opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a
heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has
prepared a city for them. (Heb 11:8-10, 13-16)

Our true citizenship is in heaven and we’re only renting space here. Our political allegience should be to no party, no special interest, no race or gender, but to God alone.

This was from the sermon a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been saving it for a prelude to Super Tuesday. Here’s a quote from Mike Huckabee, when asked by Time Magazine why he left the ministry for politics:

“In my early years of ministry, I was quite idealistic, thinking that most
people in the congregation expected me to be the captain of a warship leading
God’s troops into battle to change the world,” he writes. “As the years passed,
I became increasingly convinced that most people wanted me to captain the Love
Boat, making sure everyone was having a good time.”

It stands to reason in today’s age of 24-hour news cycles, embedded reporters, and an endless number of political blogs, that we’d think that there is a better chance to “change the world” in politics than in ministry. That’s certainly a condemnation of our Church in America, but also highlights that we rely too much on our civic leaders to be our ministry for us.

It’s my conviction that the reason we need welfare, social security, and inevitably some kind of universal health care in this country is that we, as individuals in God’s Kingdom, don’t live up to God’s expectation to take care of the poor, the orphan, and the widow. Jesus specifically condemned not taking care of our own parents in their old age:

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
” ‘These people honor me with their lips
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.‘” (Mt 15:3-9)

Let me paraphrase in today’s terms:

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your culture? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that it’s the government’s responsibility to take care of the elderly. That our money is to spend on whatever we want, gifts devoted to ourselves. Thus you rely on your government to take care of your responsibilities. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right about you…”

So are we really surprised that a minister feels he has a better chance to affect change in our culture by running for the highest office in the land?

But what about you? Why are you voting for who you’re voting for on Tuesday (or whenever your primary might be)? Are we expecting our leaders to do what we can’t, yet should as members of Christ’s Church? Are expecting our government to legislate our values instead of sharing them through personal evangelism? Are we living our lives defined by our culture, or are we striving to define the culture around us?

Gong back to the first quote, are we sailors on a warship in God’s navy, or vacotioners on a cruise ship just enjoying the sights?

Two nights ago was the last Republican debate before “Super Tuesday” on the 5th. The debate was held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library with the wife of the late president, Nancy Reagan, sitting right in front. The debate asked the usual generic questions which elicit the same stump speaches from the candidates. Until the end, when it was asked of each of the remaining candidates, “why would Ronald Reagan endorse you?”

Both Mitt Romney and John McCain gave the expected lines on lower taxes, strong military, blah, blah, blah. Ron Paul talked about how he had Reagan’s support in his campaigns for Congress and how he supported Reagan for governor of California. But Mike Huckabee, the former minister, spoke last and didnt’ talk about policy or politics. Instead he talked about the inpiration Reagan gave to America.

He was set up from the start. A former minister, asked if one of the most openly religious presidents in our lifetime would support him. And Gov. Huckabee started out alright, discussing hope and patriotism. But he never said those words that I was sure he was set up to say. Quoting Reagan, paraphrasing Jesus, the dream of an America that is a City set on a hill, a light to the world. A statement, a vision, that inspires hope in a better America, a more peaceful world. Reagan said it in the context of the Cold War but it would still apply today in the context of the War on Terror. An attitude that America can be better than it is. More righteous, more hopeful, more prosperous.

But while Gov. Huckabee touched on all those points, he never said those words. “A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” (Mt 5:14) I guess it’s ok to talk about faith and religion in states like Iowa or South Carolina, but not in California.

And for those who say there is no place to quote the Bible in a campaign–heaven forbid we mix religion and politics–here are some quotes from Reagan himself, a man who before allowing doctors to proceed in a surgery to save his life after being shot, would not ask for God’s healing hand before first forgiving the man who shot him.

“I’ve always believed that there is a certain divine scheme of things. I’m
not quite able to explain how my election happened or why I’m here, apart from
believing that it’s a part of God’s plan for me. “

“God has a plan for each one of us. Some with little faith and even less
testing seem to miss in their mission, or else we perhaps fail to see their
imprint on the lives of others. But bearing what we cannot change and going on
with what God has given us, confident there is a destiny, somehow seems to bring
a reward we wouldn’t exchange for any other.”

“We have it within our power to begin the world over again. We can do it,
doing together what no one church can do by itself.”