I took a photo tonight for my memo to Barack Obama. Took it in the midst of another photo shoot with Laurie (so that’s the brief background on the suit and santa hat :-)).
I posted the photo to Facebook and Flickr and then decided – hey – why not create a Flickr group to let everyone share their memo’s to the president-elect.
So, I’m hoping that by the time you read this – this slideshow will be full of photos (and not just mine). But regardless – share yours and then tell a friend.
I gave in and joined a couple discussion on Facebook over the weekend about faith and politics.
Several folks whom I consider good friends (and still do) made comments that basically said if you vote for any candidate that supports abortion, you need to really question your salvation and faith.
That really bothers me. But I really don’t want to delve into that here.
For the record, I’m pro-life. Always have been and likely always will be. And I also hope that my pro-life stance doesn’t end with birth of a child. I hope that it goes from conception to the grave. Am I caring for that baby after it’s birth? Am I advocating for quality of life and freedom and justice for that baby as he or she grows into adulthood? Am I advocating that the child will be free from oppression?
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I will also add that my pro-life stance doesn’t always agree that “life” is the ultimate answer. We tend to think it is. We tend to think that prolonging life is the ultimate goal of medicine. But just because we have the technology to keep a person alive via machine – doesn’t always mean that we should.
But I digress.
Anyways, I wanted to share a couple different views on the election. Two different “Christian” authors have shared some of their thoughts on the election.
This first video is a video of John Piper who shares his thoughts on the unusual challenges this election presents. Such as Sara Palin as VP. Can a woman be “commander in chief?” And what about race and what about abortion? Shouldn’t Barack Obama be concerned about the 12 million unborn babies who have been killed in the U.S.?
Beyond the initial comments, I think Piper makes some great excellent points.
We don’t live for politics. We don’t base our confidence about the future on who gets elected… Let those who vote or do politics do it as though they were not doing it. Which means there is a type of engagement that is not all consuming… We’re not here fully. We have a foot in heaven and a foot on the earth. We are citizens of two kingdoms. This is not our main home. This world is passing away… We know this system is disappearing. We shouldn’t be so worked up about our opponent getting elected that it will undo his life.
The second point of view is from Don Miller. He shares his journey from being a Ronald Reagan Republican to a Barack Obama Democrat.
My Journey from being a Reagan Republican to an Obama Democrat.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church along the Gulf Coast in Texas. It was a suburban church nowhere near a bus line, protected as it were from most demographics that didn’t have our common interests. Those interests were embodied in the Republican Party, then led by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan captured our attention with an anti-communist, anti-atheist message, that was easy to understand, emboldening the American people against a clear threat , that of nuclear war and a godless communist regime. Reagan rode that same horse his entire career, even as an actor while President of the Screen Actors Guild, taking stands against blacklisted actors and directors thought to be sympathizers with communist ideology. The Democrats, on the other hand, were squishy, hard to understand, and believed life was complicated. They sounded intellectual and suspicious.
So take some time and dig into these thoughts, these world-views. Do they line up with yours? Does it matter?
I keep going back to Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw’s thought, “What matters more is not who you vote for on Nov. 4 but how you live on Nov. 3 and Nov. 5th.”
Another world is possible!
And one final thought, especially for those of you who haven’t voted yet, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy Adams
UPDATE: @kevinhendricks adds to the Piper conversation on his own blog :: should we pray for the church to suffer?
A congressman from Texas raised these questions on the House floor in 2002.
I wonder how many of them have been answered in the last six years.
QUESTIONS THAT WON’T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ
Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. I am concerned there are some questions that won’t be asked- and maybe will not even be allowed to be asked. Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war.
1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?
2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate- which just confirms that there is no real threat?
3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?
4. Is it not true that the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?
5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?
6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism?
7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?
8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our “allies,” the Kurds?
9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?
10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda “is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses”?
11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States- and who may again attack the United States- and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?
12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world’s worst suspicions about the US, and isn’t this what bin Laden wanted?
13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country?
14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to go to war?
15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?
16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?
17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States?
18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to “build democracy” there?
19. Iraq’s alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty?
20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?
21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?
22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe?
23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharaf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically-elected president?
24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992- including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?
25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein’s rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?
26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate US policy?
27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?
28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won’t have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?
29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?
30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?
31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?
32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?
33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and- not coincidentally- we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?
34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence services, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban?
35. Why don’t those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress?
And John Stewart does it again:
Tripp Fuller shared a great thought today via his blog:
Listening to both parties each night has made me confident that the church really needs to quit outsourcing its vocation.
Makes a world of sense to me. Seems like the less the church does, the more the government feels it needs to step in to care for people. I can agree with much of the Democratic view of things because they see the need to step in and help the helpless. Yet, I still have to question if that’s really the government’s role. If the church really did their job, I think we’d be a lot closer to solving the world’s problems – than depending on the American Government to do so.
Kevin Hendricks and I seem to be asking some of the same questions as well and trying to decide how someone who claims to be a follower of Christ also claim to put country first. Seems backwards to me.
Tripp also shares several questions raised by Warren Carter (who is on the Homebrewed Christianity podcast last week – with part 2 to be posted this week):
Here are Carter’s questions:
What does it mean to be…..
Finally, thought this was an interesting contradiction in Sara Palin’s speech last night…
First she rips on Obama because “Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights?”
Then she applauds John McCain because “To the most powerful office on earth, he would bring the compassion that comes from having once been powerless … the wisdom that comes even to the captives, by the grace of God.”
Got answers? The world is listening.
related ::
tripp fuller :: preaching the sermon on the mount and some more substantive lingering questions
barack obama’s acceptance speech
sara palin’s RNC convention speech
kevin hendricks :: country first
SSL :: question for today
Emergent Village shares the video and text of Donald Miller’s (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What) prayer of benediction at the DNC Convention in Denver last night.
Here’s the video:
The full text and background story is at emergent village.
related:
emergent village
SSL :: christian conservatives could bolt from GOP
SSL :: bone of my bone. flesh of my flesh.
SSL :: more on searching for God knows what