Christianity and Politics
Readers of this blog several years ago know that it was a distinctly conservative political blog. While I never had the traffic of some of the large conservative political websites, I had decent traffic and a pretty good Google page rank. I enjoyed writing about politics and my conservative philosophy and I think I did a pretty good job of it.
Now, of course, I’ve dropped political blogging in favor of blogging about my experience as a growing Christian. There is, however, a connection between the two in my mind.
When I went to Charleston Southern University I was a double major. My majors were religion and political science. People often looked at me as if I had grown two heads when I told them that. The question in their minds was, “what in the world do those two things have to do with each other?”
For me the conservative political philosophy was a natural extension of my Christian beliefs. On issue after issue it has always seemed to me that the conservative position (as opposed to the Republican position) was much more in line with Biblical teaching than liberal positions.
I can just hear Christian Democrats screaming at me now so let me clarify. I am NOT presenting a conservative Christianity apologetic. I am explaining where I have come from in order to lay the ground work for what I have to say on the general subject of Christianity and politics.
You see, I did not stop political blogging because I changed my political views. On the contrary, I hold essentially the same views I always have regarding what I believe to be correct or the best political philosophy. What has changed is where I see that philosophy fitting in to the bigger picture of change in the world.
For many years I believed that if only we could, as a country, adopt the best political philosophy, we could turn America around and once again become a moral, Christian country. I hope you see the problem with this. I was placing my trust in a philosophy which is the same mistake Utopian thinkers have made throughout history.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this approach is that it ignores the basic inability of man to make himself better. Utopian thinkers have always believed that if society only had the right approach, every social problem, every social injustice could be corrected and we could all live happily ever after. But the fact is, mankind is hopelessly corrupt and morally bankrupt. It is our nature to grab all we can for ourselves and not worry about everyone else. If that were not true there would be no need for government in the first place.
That’s why conservatives are always disappointed when they elect Republicans they believe to be conservative. While they may have been conservative when elected, they are subject to the same failings as all humans and when they face the temptations that come with power, they generally don’t handle it any better than anyone else. So you end up with Republicans presiding over the largest expansion of government up to that time which is clearly not based on conservatism.
Regardless of which party is in power, it is still human men and women who are in power and they are all, along with the rest of us, fallen human beings in need of a savior. Left to their own devices and their own personal philosophy, they will all become more and more corrupt because that is our nature.
As Lord Acton so aptly noted, “power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is true for the best of us as well as the worst. It might take longer for the best but it is still the norm because we cannot improve ourselves.
This, of course, flies in the face of postmodern thinking which is generally committed to the idea that we can improve the human condition through our own efforts. Never mind that thousands of years of history demonstrate the falsity of such a belief. We still cling to the idea that, in spite of everything that has been tried before, if we just do this or that differently, we can achieve a different result. Now there is absolute faith that flies in the face of all the evidence!
So if we are helpless to help ourselves, what hope is there? The answer is that the God of all creation has already done for us what we could never do for ourselves. He has provided redemption through His Son, Jesus, who died so that we might live. Only through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross can we hope to effect any change in humanity as a whole and American society more specifically.
Following the 2006 elections I was so disappointed that I could hardly function. I thought we were doomed as a nation. By the time of the 2008 elections, I had gone through a change. Even though the 2008 election results were far worse from a conservative perspective than the 2006 results, I was not nearly so disappointed. The reason was that I grasped much more fully that God is in control and He knows what He is doing. I knew that I could trust Him no matter how it looked to me.
I still believe that a conservative approach to governance is the best way to go but attempting that without a Christian worldview is just wasted effort because people do not feel accountable to anyone but themselves and no one does a worse job of holding you accountable than you do. “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” Psalms 127:1
So my focus has changed from politics to Christianity because that is the real, the true answer. Political philosophy can never save us. Only God can do that through His Son, Jesus.
Print This Post
Tags: philosophy, Politics, redemption, salvationPrayer
Why is it that so many Christians struggle with prayer? We all know one or two “prayer warriors” but for many it seems difficult to maintain a daily prayer routine, much less engage in serious, daily prayer.
I’ve gone through seasons where I was praying regularly and productively, only to one day realize that somewhere along the way I had stopped. When that realization hits it is often guilt inducing. After all, I’m supposed to be a growing Christian who walks the walk. How can I not pray?
Part of the answer seems fairly obvious. The enemy doesn’t want us praying so he gives us lots of things to take the place of prayer. And being the fallen humans we are, we tend to fall for it.
The guilt that follows is also from the enemy. He tells us we’re wasting our time or we’re incapable of doing what we should so we should just give up trying. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, convicts us to get up and keep going.
I’m endeavoring to be more intentional about prayer. I want to have my daily prayer time but I want to go beyond that. I want to “pray without ceasing” as the apostle Paul put it.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve struggled with some problem or challenge at work that I seemed unable to find the answer to. Like clockwork, when I tell my wife about the frustration, her response will be the same: “have you prayed about it?” It becomes embarrassing after the umteenth time we go through this and I still have to hang my head and say “no.”
It is not only embarrassing, it is contrary to who I am as a Christian. Prayer should be the default response to everything in life, whether we perceive them as good or bad. God always knows what’s going on in our lives. He is always in control and we can always trust Him to know what He’s doing. Because of that we should be praising Him in all situations and looking for what He is doing.
So I’m working to improve my prayer life. For one thing, I’m putting s small sign in my car that says simply “PRAY.” When I get up in the morning I want to pray. When I leave the house I want to pray. When I arrive at a client’s location I want to pray. When I leave the client I want to pray. I want prayer to be such an integral part of my life that not praying is unthinkable. I want it to be the default response to everything that happens in life
I know that God hears and answers when I pray. I know this, not simply because the Bible says so, though that is reason enough. I know it because I’ve experienced it far to many times to ignore. God has always been faithful, even when I haven’t. It is insanity for me not to pray!
Print This Post
Tags: faith, faithfulness, prayerMiracles Run in My Family
My mom’s life is a series of miracles. As a baby she was rushed to the hospital not breathing. The doctors gave up on her and pronounced her dead but the nurse and my grandfather didn’t give up. They managed to dislodge a pea she had sucked down her wind pipe and get her breathing. Since that day so long ago she has experienced so many miracles as to be uncountable and today she had another one.
Mom went in the hospital for surgery this morning. The purpose of the surgery was to repair a hole in her bladder but while they were in they planned to go ahead and also repair a hernia that was really giving her some trouble as well as one or two other things.
You have to understand that my mom is not a good candidate for surgery. Today was the 38th major surgery of her life. Because of all these surgeries she has a lot of scare tissue that makes doctors reluctant to operate on her unless it is absolutely necessary. She also has a lot of health problems that make her less than a good candidate for surgery. So it takes a lot for her doctors to decide to cut her open. They would not have done so today if not for the hole in her bladder that was confirmed several weeks ago through a cystoscope.
She was in surgery about three hours this morning and all went very well. It went so well, in fact, that they did not have to do anything to her bladder. According the surgeon, her bladder had spontaneously healed itself! He said he’d never seen anything like it. He could see where the hole had been just a few weeks ago but it was completely healed. Of course, since they were already in, they went ahead and did the other repairs they would never had opened her up for without the hole in her bladder.
This surgery was planned but not scheduled for almost two months. Indeed, it drug on for so long that I was beginning to become annoyed about it. I could not understand why, if this was so serious and had to be done, it was taking so long for it to actually happen. The answer to that became clear to me today. Here is what I believe.
God knew the doctors would not operate on mom for the hernia or the other problems alone but He, in His infinite wisdom, wanted them to anyway. Now He could have done any number of things, including simply healing her other problems, but He had other plans. He allowed this hole in the bladder to cause this surgery to take place. But He also caused the delays to give her bladder time to heal first, which does not happen under any circumstances the surgeon was aware of. The result of all this was mom got the other problems repaired and God was glorified because of the clearly miraculous healing of her bladder.
Skeptics will come up with all manner of objections. Why didn’t God just heal everything? Why didn’t He do something else entirely. They will claim I am delusional or worse. But the fact is, we can never fathom all the reasons God has for doing what He does. I don’t know why He didn’t just heal everything but I know that what He actually did and what actually happened brought glory and honor to His name and that is what it’s all about! Praise be to God and God alone!
Print This Post
Tags: God, miraclesGood News
I went back to the doctor today and got some very good news. He said the swelling in my optic nerve is almost gone! He expects that over the next weeks and months I should see gradual improvement in my vision. He said that I would probably have some permanent vision loss but he believes I will eventually be able to drive at night again and be pretty close to normal.
The visit was actually pretty funny at points. The doctor called me his poster child because of the level of improvement. In fact, he’s apparently had discussions with the drug company about me. Obviously he believes the treatment is entirely responsible for for all this.
I don’t want to minimize the value of medical treatments in general or this treatment in particular. Indeed, I consider myself to be incredibly blessed to have ended up at this particular doctor who had just recently completed a small set of trials sponsored by the drug company with this treatment. In my mind it is nothing short of a miracle that, of all the doctors I could have seen, I saw this doctor. That is God at work my friends!
But I also know, based on other things the doctor has said over these last several weeks, that my results are not typical. He always expected some improvement but I don’t believe he ever expected to see the level that occurred in just two days. When he saw me on the Friday after the treatment on Wednesday, he was incredibly excited over the improvement in my visual acuity. In fact, he was a lot more excited than I was because I wasn’t also experiencing improvement in visual field.
The bottom line is this. I don’t know how much more improvement I’ll see or even if I’ll see any more improvement at all. I do know that God has worked in miraculous ways already and I expect He will continue to do so!
Print This Post
Tags: faith, God, miracles, trust, visionA New Direction
It’s been a very long time since I put any effort into this blog. That has bothered me considerably since I put so much into it for several years but I just didn’t have the patience any longer to keep it up. Primarily that was because the main focus of the blog was political and I came to understand that the ultimate answers are not political.
Now I believe I have a new direction for the blog. So much has happened in my life and the lives of those in my family that I am now refocused.
For example, several weeks ago I experienced a sudden, dramatic loss of vision. I suffered something called Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy (NAAION). This is commonly described as a stroke of the optic nerve. The results progress very rapidly and over a period of about four days, I lost much of the vision in my left eye. I knew exactly what was going on from the start because the same thing occurred in my left eye eleven years ago which left me legally blind in that eye. As serious as that sounds, it was really more of an inconvenience to me that anything else because my left eye remained sound. Now, of course, I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other, so to speak. 
Fortunately, my left eye is not so bad as my right eye so I am not legally blind but I do have some real limitations I did not have a few weeks ago. I cannot drive at night or in the rain and reading has become more difficult. I need text to be larger to read comfortably. I can still read fairly small text when I have to but doing so for any length of time is exhausting and leads to headaches.
I don’t mention all this to elicit sympathy from anyone. On the contrary, sympathy is the last thing I need. Indeed, what I have needed, God has graciously provided! And that is really the point of this post and the direction I will be taking this blog.
You see, throughout this ordeal, God has given me strength. Faithful Christians all over have prayed for me, many who don’t know me at all. Dozens of churches have mobilized prayer warriors and their prayers have been heard and answered. The answer has not been physical healing. It has been greater dependence on Him. It has been a miraculous treatment that improved my ability to read, which was almost lost entirely. It has been the provision of thousands of dollars in equipment for the visually impaired that I could never have afforded. And it has been in the quiet strength of my wife and partner, Jules.
I am truly blessed among men and that blessing has nothing to do with physical comforts or even physical health. I am blessed, above all, because I know beyond all doubt that my faith in God is well founded. I know that I can trust Him and His plan, whether I ever understand it or not.
My pastor, Buster Brown, wrote a blog post today on the subject of joy. I’m so pleased that Buster has begun to blog. Anyway, I was thinking about joy and it occurred to me that the struggles in my life have ultimately lead to more joy than all the successes and triumphs. That may seem counter intuitive but the reason is that I am forced to become more dependent on God during struggles and that is right where we all need to be. Unless we are totally dependent upon God, we will be frustrated, dissatisfied and without joy.
So now I am looking to the future, both in life and on this blog. I know that, whether my vision stays the same, gets worse or gets better, God is in control and I will be okay. I may not be okay in terms the world can understand but the world is not my home. I want to work at explaining that more fully in the months to comes so stay tuned.
Print This Post
Tags: comfort, dependence, faith, grace, joyWhat the Future May Hold
It’s been 10 months since I regularly wrote for this blog and now I’m thinking about picking it up again. Much has changed in that 10 months and little of that change has been positive. This country is accelerating down the road to destruction more rapidly each day. I don’t know if it’s even possible to stop it but I think conservatives and Christians have to make the attempt.
I’m a fan of Rush Limbaugh and I’m not ashamed to say so but I don’t always agree with him. For example, I don’t share his optimism when it comes to this country. Rush is convinced that America is so great that no President and no Congress can bring it down. I believe America has been a great country but we’ve lost much of what made us great. Would I like to see us regaini that greatness? Of course! Do I think we can do so? I don’t know.
We’ve gone so far down this road. I argued before the election that the rate of change was slow enough that most American’s didn’t notice the slow march left and that, perhaps, what we needed was an acceleration of that march so that the American people would wake up and take notice. I predicted that Barach Obama would be an even worse President than Jimmy Carter and it took a Jimmy Carter to get a Ronald Reagan.
Well, we got Obama and he and the Democrats are moving at breakneck speed to turn back any and all conservatives gains over the last eight years. They are taking advantage of the current economic situation to shove through every liberal project they’ve saved up for the last 20 years. I now few that they will take us so far that even a conservative resurgence in 2010 will not be able to turn us back.
It’s true that conservatives across the country are becoming more and more active but it’s also true that many Republicans in Congress have learned nothing from the last two elections. The current omnibus spending bill working its way through the Senate is a case in point. Even Alabama’s Richard Shelby, along with several other Republicans, is supporting the bill that is stuffed with pork.
The future of America looks pretty bleak to me. But, as I’ve been saying to people around me for a while, regardless of what Obama or the Congress do, I am consoled and lifted up by the fact that God is still in control. That doesn’t necessarily mean a rosy future for America or Christians but it does mean that God will walk with us through whatever is to come. I believe, for example, that God will use what’s coming to strengthen His church and that can only be a good thing.
For far too long the church in American has been virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding culture. There’s been little to no cost to claiming Christ here and we’ve grown fat and complacent. That’s not healthy and I believe God will use what’s coming to change it. It may be a painful process but it will be worth it.
Everything Christians beleive is under attack in America today. I believe it won’t be too long before Christians will be actively persecuted in America. If you think that can’t happen here, ask yourself what things are true today that a few years ago you said couldn’t happen in America. No friends, it can happen it if we continue on the road we’re on, it will happen. But remember that the church is strongest where it is persecuted. That is true the world over.
We are approaching a time where Christians will truly have to “count the cost” and many will decide the cost is too high. Those who are willing to pay the cost will grow stronger. That will purify the church and make it stronger.
I’m sure many reading this will take me to be a complete crackpot. I can live with that. But one thing I’ve learned over the last few years is that political philosopy, as important as it is, won’t save us. I’ll be involved in the political process and I’ll work to elect solid conservatives but I will not place my faith in that process. When I do that I am always disappointed. Only by keeping my faith in God alone can I stay focused and positive in the face of a deteriorating future. Because no matter what’s ahead in America, I know that God will be with me and my family and He will provide what we need. Only then am I no longer bound to circumstances to determine my joy. I can be joyful regardless of the circumstance.
So I’ll be writing again here but it won’t just be the same old political analysis. Yes, the analysis will be there but it will be filtered through the lense of God’s power and control over everything. I hope some will appreciate that perspective. Many won’t be that’s okay.
Print This Post
Tags: America, Church, future, God, ObamaSome Much Needed Perspective
Two days until election day and both liberals and conservatives alike are worried. Tuesday has the potential to be another razor close election, though some liberals are predicting an Obama landslide. On the other side, Tammy Bruce, filling in on the Laura Ingraham show Friday predicted a McCain win. I don’t know about you but these nail biters are taking their toll on me.
As someone with strong political views and a solid conservative ideology, it has been pretty standard for me to place a great deal of confidence in my political philosophy. That’s true both in the capacity of that philosophy to win the day in the arena of ideas and in its ability as a governing philosophy to create sound government. I assume the other side feels pretty much the same way about their political philosophy and ideals. For both, Wednesday will either be a day of celebration or a day of mourning.
Following the ‘06 elections I was fairly depressed for several weeks. I wondered how we’d survive as a nation with liberals in control again. Certainly the results of that election haven’t exactly produced or inspired a lot of confidence in the American people. The current Congress has the lowest approval ratings since congressional approval ratings have been taken. But America is still here. We haven’t disappeared into the abyss.
Lately I’ve been ruminating on the wisdom of placing so much faith in a political philosophy. While I’m not prepared to jetison sound political thinking, I recognize that the basic problems in this country are not the result of politics, cries to the contrary not withstanding. While a political party or philosophy may encourage right behavior or wrong behavior, it is what is in people’s hearts that dictate the choices they make, not what party is in power.
I recognize that not all readers are Christians but I am. And what has been on my mind lately is the fact that, as far as I’m concerned, God is still in control. Some will find that a difficult statement to swallow. For you I am truly sorry.
I’ve always said that my Christian faith informs and directs my political philosophy. I still believe that but I’ve come to realize that I’ve managed to get the cart before the horse. I’ve elevated the political philosophy above the Christian faith without ever realizing I’ve done so. And that is a problem.
It is my sincere belief that no matter who wins the presidential election on Tuesday, God will still be in control. If the Democrats achieve a 60 vote fillibuster proof majority in the Senate and make substantial gains in the House so that Republicans can’t do a thing to stop them, God will still be in control!
With such a perspective I expect to wake up Wednesday morning with a smile on my face regardless of the election results because God is in control. I’ve found that He does a much better job of running things than I do and for that I am eternally grateful. I really don’t know how anyone survives in this world apart from faith in God. I think I’d place all my faith in political philosophy and I’d be eternally disappointed, disillusioned and depressed. I don’t want to live that way and I’m resolving not to.
I still hold the same ideological beliefs, the same political philosophy I did. I still believe conservatism is superior to liberalism. But I recognize that neither philosophy is going to change people’s hearts. Only God can do that!
Print This Post
What Does the GOP, and This Country, Need?
I know I wasn’t going to be posting here but this is just too important. This is cross posted from Ft Hard Knox.
It’s an interesting question. The GOP loses in the ‘06 election were widely attributed, both by GOP leadership and the media, to unhappiness over the Iraq war. While there was certainly unhappiness over the war, it was clear to most conservatives that the war was not the reason for the loss. Rather, the abandonment of conservative principles by the Republican Congress was the issue. Under the Bush administration we saw the largest growth of the federal government since LBJ’s Great Society.
Ronald Reagan wanted to eliminate the Department of Education. George W. Bush grew it beyond all recognition and Congressional Republicans went right along. Until the Democrats gained control of Congress the President had yet to use his veto pen. All the while GOP leadership and President Bush claimed the mantle of conservatism.
When Bush first ran in 2000 I knew he was no conservative. I voted against him in the primaries. Compassionate conservatism was nothing but a smoke screen for big government. Since then GOP leadership embraced this big government "conservatism" and their governance was hardly distinguishable for the Democrats. With spending out of control and government growing at an increasing rate, the conservative rank and file said "enough." If the GOP was going to abandon us, why should we support them?
Here we are two years later with a huge RINO for a nominee and a GOP leadership still in denial. While McCain gave lip service to conservatives at CPAC, his actions in the last couple of weeks have demonstrated that he cares nothing for conservatives and apparently believe he doesn’t need us to win. Instead, McCain is pandering to the middle, to moderates and independents. Indeed, it appears that McCain would like to rid the GOP of conservatives altogether.
Mark Levin has pointed out that McCain isn’t campaigning for other Republicans. He appears to be concerned only about his own elections. Of course, it might simply be that McCain’s agenda depends on a Democrat Congress and he isn’t interested in putting that at risk. So if McCain wins in November he will have no coat tails at all. I cannot remember another Republican presidential candidate who has done so little to help his own party.
The bottom line is this; the GOP has completely lost its way. While no one can seriously argue that the Republican Party was always conservative, it was not, its bread and butter since Reagan has been conservatism. Every time a conservative runs on a conservative platform, they win. Even the Democrats run conservatives to win elections.
Now the GOP appears to believe that conservatism isn’t the path to victory. That, of course, betrays a fundamental lack of core values in the first place. Conservatism isn’t merely a path to power, although it will certainly lead to that. Conservatism is a core set of values. It sees inherent value in the individual. It seeks to empower the individual to build his own life. It denies that government is the answer to the problems of individuals. It maintains that government should be restricted to only those functions that individuals cannot do for themselves and that are authorized by the Constitution.
The Republican Party today does not believe any of those things and the internal fight to change that has been all but lost. What are called victories are little more than slowing liberalism around the edges. Every action the GOP takes ends up moving the country to the left to some degree. There is never any movement back to the right.
Ronald Reagan was an intellectual and a pioneer but he wasn’t the first. Goldwater came before Reagan and he was the conservative’s conservative. Yet he lost horribly. The country was not yet ready to embrace conservatism. It took Jimmy Carter to pave the way for Ronald Reagan. Without Carter’s dismal administration it is doubtful that conservatism would have taken hold as it did. A truly bad Democrat President with a Democrat Congress was the catalyst needed to wake the country up and help them see the value of political conservatism. Average people were already living in a conservative way but they had not yet made the transition from personal conservatism to political conservatism. The Carter administration was necessary to show the way.
I submit that we are in a similar situation now. We’ve suffered through a Republican Party that is hardly distinguishable from the Democrat Party except in rhetoric. The Democrats have become hard line liberals while the Republicans have become moderate liberals. Conservatism is nowhere to be found in the political landscape save for small pockets of disenfranchised individuals who still hold to the philosophy. We need another Carter.
McCain cannot fill that role because he is a Republican. He is the poster child for the problems we face as conservatives. If elected he will surely work tirelessly to give us open borders and amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens already here. He will decimate our economy with punitive policies based on climate change. His lack of understanding of basic economics combined with his climate policy will cause America to fall from her position as an economic powerhouse. And when he accomplishes all this, who will get the blame? Hint, it won’t be the Democrats.
The damage to the GOP will take a generation to repair if it can be repaired at all. More likely it will die and be replaced with another party of unpredictable makeup and philosophy. That’s a high price to pay for voting for the lessor of two evils. And let’s face it, we are where we are because we’ve continued to vote for the lessor of two evils time and again. When RINOs run we think we have no choice but to support them because the alternative is worse. This is what Thomas Sowell calls first stage thinking. We look at the short term but ignore the easily predictable long term consequences. Typically politicians are guilty of this but I submit that conservatives have also been guilty of it. And voting for the lessor of two evils is still voting for evil.
This slow boil is never going to work. Like the proverbial frog in a pot, the heat has risen too slowly for most people to notice. By the time they do, this country may well be so far gone that it cannot be turned around. The only way is to turn up the heat and elect another Carter. Barak Obama is that Carter. He is the solution, albeit not the solution the Democrats think. They believe he will be their savior. Instead, he will be their downfall for at least a decade, longer if the GOP can regain its soul and keep from being corrupted by Washington power.
Many conservatives are waiting to see who McCain picks as his VP before deciding whether to vote for him. I submit that who McCain picks is irrelevant. Unless McCain dies in office, his VP pick will have no power and no ability to set policy. McCain will be the leader of the Republican Party. He will set the agenda if he is President. Under any circumstances a McCain presidency will be devastating to the GOP and to this country. At the risk of sound melodramatic, if this country is to be saved, Barak Obama must be elected President of the United States. Any other outcome of the presidential election in November will do irreparable damage both the the Republican Party and the United States.
Print This Post
Tags: America, conservatism, McCain, Obama40 Years Later: King’s Legacy
As expected, all three presidential candidates are giving speeches today commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. And rightly so. Dr. King’s struggle was a righteous struggle. By the time of King’s rise to leadership, the plight of blacks in much of America was bleak. The south in particular was engaged in such blatant racial discrimination there was little argument that it wasn’t happening. Rather, it was being justified on all kinds of spurious grounds. Racism was alive and well and many whites truly believed that blacks were inferior and therefore, discrimination was justified and justifiable.
King worked against such thinking and he did so following the path Gandhi had followed to end British oppression in India. King was committed to several things. First he wanted equal treatment for blacks. He wanted the end of black and white counters and water fountains. He wanted the end of black seating at the back of the bus. He wanted a "colorblind society" so that everyone was "judged by the content of their character" rather than the "color of their skin."
And King was clear about how to achieve such a color blind society. The civil rights movement would be successful not through terrorism and violence but through non-violent civil disobedience. King, like Gandhi, believed accepting the consequences of his actions. As a result he willingly spent more than a few nights in jail. That’s character.
Many have since attacked King on many fronts. Some have claimed he was an adulterer. Others claim he was a crook. King is in good company as many of America’s greatest historical leaders have also been thusly attacked. Jefferson has been attacked for owning slaves. Washington has been attacked both for owning slaves and for alleged adultery. In each case the goal has been the same. That is to marginalize the arguments and goals of the one being attacked posthumously.
Whether the attacks come from the left against Washington and Jefferson or from the right against King, such attacks are misguided and wrong. While alive any leader is fair game for criticism and even after death it is fair to look at the facts of a leader’s life. But using such examination in an attempt to negate particular arguments is simply fallacious. It is the logical fallacy of the ad hominem attack. It is mean spirited and betrays an inability on the part of the attacker to defend his or her position on its merits.
I don’t know what kind of man King was personally. I was a child when he was gunned down. But I know that his goals were good goals. A colorblind society was and is a good ideal. And much progress has been made in the last 40 years. Blacks are not relegated to special counters, bathrooms and water fountains. Blacks are able to achieve anything white’s can achieve, something hardly possible in Kings day. But all is not well in race relations. Alas King’s goals have been hijacked.
While there are very many in the black community still working to fulfill King’s dream, many others actively work against it. Instead of working for a colorblind society, they work for a color based society. Instead of the content of one’s character, these people seek to have all manner of decisions based mailing or solely on the color of one’s skin.
People like Jesse Jackson and Georgia Congressman John Lewis have built entire careers on the back of Martin Luther King. While giving lip services to King’s goals, such men have worked against their fulfillment because any successes undermine their own legitimacy. Indeed, if race ever becomes irrelevant they will be out of work entirely because all they know how to do is be victims.
I still have hope that America will grow past all this. But I fear that it will not happen until all those who were part of the civil rights movement of the 1960s have passed away. Until those who still remember how they were treated are gone, there may not be full healing. And that’s really too bad because they, like all our elders, have much wisdom to offer all of us. Unfortunately, for many, that wisdom is buried beneath too many layers of resentment and self imposed victimhood.
I agree wholeheartedly with Martin Luther King’s dream. I too dream of a color blind society where all men and women are judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. For character is what matters. But I fear I will not see it in my lifetime because to many are vested in victimhood.
Print This Post
Tags: MKL, race relations, RacismUK Independent reports the Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 crescent
On Saturday, the conflict over Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial got its first international news coverage. One highlight is the conversation that Leonard Doyle, U.S editor of the UK Independent, had with Tom Burnett Sr.:
Tom Burnett, whose son Tom Jnr died in the crash, said of the design that it is “aesthetically wonderful,” but “a lot of it contains Islamic symbols”. He added: “We ought to just throw the design out and start anew because it really dishonours those who died.”
Towards the end, Doyle moseys around to the bombshell, reporting the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent as a fact. The bad news is that Doyle immediately tries to dismiss this explosive information by making a completely irrelevant and factually preposterous counterclaim:
Part of the blame must lie with Paul Murdoch, architect of the winning design who initially described it as a “Crescent of Embrace”. The title caused the internet to erupt with conspiracy theories. Then someone noticed that the arc actually pointed towards Mecca. The fact that this was also the direction to Washington DC was lost on the conspiracy theorists.
No, the direction to Mecca is NOT the direction to Washington. The shortest-distance direction to Mecca (the way that Muslims calculate the direction to Mecca) heads northeast from the western Pennsylvania crash-site. Some people find that counterintuitive, but Pennsylvania and Mecca are both in the northern hemisphere, with Mecca being about 2/3rds of the way around the hemisphere. Thus the direction to Mecca takes a shortcut towards the north pole. D.C., in contrast, lies southeast from the Shanksville crash site.
The errant claim that D.C. and Mecca lie in the same direction is a red herring anyway. what difference would it make if people facing into the giant crescent were facing Washington? Is there a religion of facing Washington five times a day for prayer? Were the hijackers of Flight 93 followers of such a religion. No. They faced MECCA five times a day for prayer. That is why the Mecca direction matters.
A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a “mihrab,” and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The memorial now being built in Shanksville will be the world’s largest mosque by a factor of about fifty (and there are some really big mosques).
Doyle is not the first person to try to dismiss the Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 crescent by claiming that the crescent also points to something else. Of course it DOES point to a host of other places. It points to everything on the line between the crash site and Mecca. Earlier this year the crazy Dr. Daniel Griffith noted that one of those points turns out to be the Vatican. So what? There is no religion of facing the Vatican for prayer.
The Independent should issue a correction
Given that Doyle’s attempt to dismiss the Mecca orientation of the crescent was based on an absurdly wrong factual claim (that the direction to Mecca is the same as the direction to Washington), the Independent ought to issue a correction, especially given the importance of this error to Doyle’s reporting. Without the factual error, his illogical pretense that the Mecca orientation would not matter if the crescent happened to also point to Washington simply disappears. The Mecca orientation would then stand in naked disgrace before the Independent’s international readership. Is that enough of a prize to make a serious push for?
Doyle has already been asked for a correction, without reply. Our petition, however, gives us a new tool for dealing with such recalcitrant parties. We are up to about four hundred signees after one week, and over half say they are willing to engage in activist measures like forwarding emails. Maybe this is a good opportunity to fire a test shot, and unload a minor deluge of correction requests on the Independent. I
If you want to pitch in, just copy and paste the following short note into an email:
To the Editors of the Independent:Please correct a glaring factual error in Leonard Doyle’s article on the Flight 93 Memorial (“Conspiracy or coincidence? Flight 93 memorial attacked over crescent shape,” March 29, 2008). Doyle’s reporting of the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent is much appreciated, but he then tries to dismiss the significance of this orientation by making the factually ridiculous assertion that the direction to Mecca from the Shanksville Pennsylvania crash-site is also the direction to Washington:
… someone noticed that the arc actually pointed towards Mecca. The fact that this was also the direction to Washington DC was lost on the conspiracy theorists.
The shortest distance direction to Mecca is to the northeast from Shanksville. Washington is to the southeast. It is important to correct Mr. Doyle’s errant excuse for dismissing the Mecca orientation of the crescent because orientation on Mecca is actually very significant. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a “mihrab” and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. The planned memorial will be the world’s largest mosque. Please include this significance of the Mecca orientation in your correction. Respectfully yours,
If you haven’t yet signed our online petition, please give it a look. Also, Tom Burnett Sr. just released a public appeal for people to spread the word about our petition effort. If anyone wants to forward or post Tom’s letter, it is available for copy and paste here (scroll to bottom for HTML format).
Glaring omissions in Doyle’s report, amounting to cover up
If the Independent’s correction policy extends to dishonest reporting by omission, there are two other key facts, fully known to Mr. Doyle, that the Independent should publish. While he was driving to Shanksville, Mr. Doyle talked to Alec Rawls by telephone for almost a half an hour, mostly about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent.
Doyle was fully apprised of the double dealing of Memorial Project spokesmen who in private conversation admit the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent and make excuses for it (basically, they all assume it is coincidental), while in the newspapers they deny that the crescent points to Mecca. For example, when Superintendent Hanley was asked directly about the Mecca orientation by a reporter for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette last summer, she claimed that:
“The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site.”
Thus Doyle was fully aware of the controversial nature of the Mecca orientation claim, yet he did not report it as a matter of contention. He reported it as an fact. That means one of two things. When Doyle talked to Hanley (who is quoted in his article), she may have acknowledged the Mecca orientation of the crescent to him. Alternatively, Doyle could have checked the Mecca orientation of the crescent for himself. (Alec Rawls told him how. It takes literally 2 minutes to verify.)
Which is it Mr. Doyle? Either is explosive and should be reported. If a reporter for a major newspaper verifies for himself that the Flight 93 crescent points to Mecca, he damned well ought to say so! If Memorial Project personnel admitted the Mecca orientation of the crescent, after a long history of denying it in to the press, that is newsworthy!
Why is Doyle holding back? This is cover-up, just like his attempt to dismiss the Mecca orientation with the red herring about the direction to Mecca also being the direction to Washington.
A perverted concept of “balance”?
Doyle’s behavior is a puzzle. If he wanted to cover up the Mecca orientation of the crescent, why did he report it at all? In two and a half years, only one other reporter bothered to fact-check and report the orientation of the crescent. (Kirk Swauger at the Johnstown Tribune Democrat wrote last summer that: “[The Mecca orientation claims] seem to be backed up by coordinates for the direction of qibla from Somerset that can be found on Islam.com. When superimposed over the crescent in the memorial design, the midpoint points over the Arctic Circle, through Europe toward Mecca.”)
One possibility is that Doyle may be pursuing a perverted concept of balance, akin to the left wing preference for equality of outcomes over equality of opportunity. The facts tilt in favor of the critics of the crescent, so in order to write a story that presents the two sides as equally valid, Doyle buries the facts, not completely, but enough to write a story that does not advantage either side. Of course if the facts went against critics of the crescent, this concept of balance would go out the window (as it should). But when the facts support conservative voices, this perverted concept of balance seems to be a second mode that the West’s left wing media falls into.
That’s just a theory. Perhaps Mr. Doyle can offer a better explanation. His article is in many ways quite a nice one, telling the story of Flight 93, and of Tom Burnett Jr.’s decision to do something to stop the hijackers. Give Doyle credit also for reporting the most explosive fact (the Mecca orientation). Then he dismisses the Mecca orientation with a completely fraudulent dodge, and omits how the Project has been denying the Mecca orientation for years. Very odd.
Doyle also fails to mention that every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign.
In contrast to his fabricated grounds for dismissing the Mecca-orientation of the crescent, Doyle simply repeats without comment the Memorial Project’s claim that the design was changed to remove “any perceptions relating to Islamic symbolism”:
The crescent became a circle, with two symbolic breaks, one where visitors will walk along the flight path, the other at the crash scene.
Would it have been too much to note, as was clearly explained to Mr. Doyle, how every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the so-called redesign, which only added a few irrelevant trees to the rear of a person facing into the giant crescent.
The circle is still “broken” in the exact same spots, creating the exact same crescent. This is even how architect Paul Murdoch explains the crescent design: the terrorists broke the circle, turning it into a giant (Mecca-oriented) crescent. The only change in the “redesign” was to include a broken off chunk of the circle, which now floats out behind the mouth of the crescent.
After long conversations with Tom Burnett, Alec Rawls and Bill Steiner (who has been organizing opposition on the ground in Pennsylvania for two years) Doyle actually knows more about the Islamic symbolism in the crescent design than any other reporter who has covered this story. If he would just report the truth, he could do some real good, and advance his own career at the same time, by breaking the story of a lifetime. Instead, he has decided to hide the truth, even using blatant disinformation to do it. Sure looks like ideological bias.
Click here to insist on a correction.
To join, email Cao (caoilfhionn1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.
Print This Post
Tags: Flight 83 BlogburstNext Page »
