Guidelines for churches/pastors politically

A lot of leeway for pastors. Good.

A good election, for the GOP

In general, this was a good election. The only way to make it great would be for Republicans to have lost another five seats in the Senate and another twenty in the House. The worse the loss, the quicker and more intensely the GOP searches for its wandering soul.

The party of Reagan is sick and has been for some time. It is not pleasant when the electorate finally recognizes it. And the situation will not improve significantly until the Republican party recognizes its ill health and begins to take corrective measures. The measures are these:

Remember that you once were, and should be again, the party of small government. That some in the GOP think there is such a thing as big government conservatism only shows how ailing it really is. Stick a thermometer in the mouth of the Bush crowd and their friends in the Senate and the House and watch the mercury climb to the letters GOS – short for Grand Old Spending.

· Bush has signed every spending bill that crossed his desk. His veto pen, apparently, was lost or stolen.

· His enormous education bill in 2001 was a loser, the big farm bill in 2002 was atrocious and the enormous Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003 could only cause the last remaining fiscal conservative in the White House to blush. Chalk the latter up as the largest entitlement expansion in the last four decades. For shame.

· As the deficit ballooned, all the President could talk about was cutting it in half. Faint-hearted, that.

· Reagan said, “Government is not the solution, it is the problem.” Our current president has said, "I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives."

Unfortunately, “help” has meant much more. And more means the government is running our lives more today than they did yesterday.

Do some real soul-searching, stat. No better time to do so. In the House, culturally and economically moderate Republicans took a serious hit. In the Senate it is a major loss that Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was defeated, but it is a plus that Ohio’s Sen. Mike DeWine and Rhode Island's Sen. Lincoln Chaffee are walking out with him. The latter, always a particularly onerous liberal inclusion into the party, won’t be part of the revival discussions. In other words, there are fewer liberals and moderates today, and a number of good conservatives should ponder what could happen in 2008 if the passionate Contract with America days could be revived. That is, get an economic and culturally conservative plan and execute it.

Find that pen. My hunch is that today Karl Rove and others are beginning to remember where they left that veto pen. Mr. Bush will need it as Democrats try to thrust all manner of deviance, higher taxes, and more spending on the populace. With the Democrats’ big election night over, so is Bush’s ability to assert his will from the Oval Office. But the Dems aren’t going to rule the roost either; hence, gridlock.

Search for and find your morally conservative character. The Judeo-Christian ethic is nothing to be ashamed of in public policy or personal life. When you either act like you are ashamed of it or find yourself, for instance, reluctant to flush out a congressman making passes at pages, well, you should be backpedaling on election day. Run on a higher moral plane, and appreciate that the American people holds you to that standard.

Embrace gridlock. Not a bad word, gridlock. It means things stay pretty much the same and, given the domestic possibilities with liberals running the committees, that is not bad. Heretofore President Bush wasn’t exactly moving the cultural agenda forward. So, nothing has really changed. Also, remember that presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton will be part of a gridlock Senate, and she has had her feminine pedestal stolen from her by the new most-important-woman-on-the-Hill Nancy Pelosi. Hard to successfully run for president as a New York liberal in the first place, but especially difficult from this diminished position.

Clench your teeth and listen, real good. Which means the biggest challenge for the opposition for the next two years is having to listen to the shrill and not infrequently bitter Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Her San Francisco-style gavel nows rule the House. Keep your ears open to Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, Jr., of Michigan; a Banking Committee (Financial Services) chair, Barney Frank of Massachusetts; the Ways and Means Committee led by Charles B. Rangel of New York; and the Energy and Commerce leadership of John D. Dingell of Michigan.

Tall order, this listening mandate, but nothing should more quickly encourage those on the cultural and economic right to invigorate themselves.

The loss of this election should be good for the GOP. If they change. Really, truly, change.

Hey Republicans...quit whining!

Republicans this week are bemoaning the fact that the media, and none too few soccer moms, are holding the entire party accountable for the under-a-cloud resignation of Rep. Mark Foley, a congressman found to be a bit too intimate with minor-aged pages.

The GOP feigns shock. Afterall, if the media is so relentlessly in pursuit of this the month before the November elections shouldn’t they at least try to put the Foley scandal in perspective with the Democratic Reps. Barney Franks, Gary Studds, Gary Condit and President Bill Clinton scandals of yesteryear. The rabid liberal media didn’t seem nearly so interested in accountability then as they seem to be now with Foley and the GOP.

The real lesson in all this – get over it. Get over it Republicans, cultural conservatives and those pleased to be dubbed the religious right. If your favorite political party has a supposed moral core that wants to advertise on issues like, for instance, what constitutes a family, the Judeo-Christian value system and the protection of life at its earliest conception - then don’t be surprised that you might be judged by a higher standard by those to whom you are selling your vision of the world.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount taught us that “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” In other words, high moral principles mean a higher standard of accountability for yourself. So, when one of your political party falls in sexual disgrace, then don’t be surprised if a liberal secular media jumps all over it with glee and then gladly pounds your chances for majority power in Congress to a pulp weeks before an election.

I, for one, thinks it is important to set a high standard and then live up to that standard with firmness, humility and kindness. And when that standard is not met by our team, we should own up to our failing, take appropriate action and let the political or public perception fallout drop where they may. What we shouldn’t do is whine about how unfair it is that no one likes us now because we a) didn’t nip this problem in the bud when we could have and b) by golly, why can’t people remember names like Frank, Studds, Condit and Clinton when we need them to?

Two answers to that last question. The Democrats and the media have no such high standards and the Republicans have advertised that they do.

Quit whining, clean up your House and face the future in a state of renewed focus. That the Republican House didn’t think this a good strategy a year ago, what we might really be talking about here is a well-deserved minority focus.

Campolo...on conservatives

This is from a Tony Campolo interview.

Q. How do you feel about evangelicals becoming involved in environmental issues?

A. Evangelicals have tended to be conservative and that has led them to take positions that are anti-biblical. The environment is one. The God of Creation calls us to be good stewards of creation. I worry sometimes when the church becomes so tied into a political mind-set that it's more committed to the politics of a party than it is sensitive to what the Scripture teaches.

Tony, Tony. C'mon. "Tended to be conservative...[thus] anti-biblical"?

Dr. Campolo is so much better than this. Wants, along with Jim Wallis and company, to be the great Evangelical Middle in coming elections that he just can't stand not to take a swipe when one is not warranted. Conservative...anti-biblical. Cheap.

And, for whatever it is worth, some of us worry about the Campolo/Wallis crowd becoming so tied to a political mind-set that they are far more committed to the politics of the Democrats than what the Scripture teaches.

Be careful, Tony. Be very careful. You are becoming that which you are railing against - politically captive.

Venezuelan President Cesar Chavez on the Devil

This is what the U.S. has to deal with in the United Nations. Makes it hard to take seriously...

The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself]

"And it smells of sulfur still today."

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe." From the Drudge Report.

Kerry - legitimately and seriously religious?

Update: This from James Taranto/Opinion Journal:

So here's Kerry's idea of "common ground":

Abortion opponents agree to accept that any woman who wants to abort her baby has an absolute right to do so (per Roe v. Wade), at taxpayer expense ("health insurance for everyone").

In exchange, Kerry and his fellow abortion enthusiasts have to say that they devoutly hope that the various big-government social programs, which they would support anyway, will reduce the number of abortions.

Sounds like Kerry gets the better end of this deal.

Is Kerry the real deal, or is this just a ploy for votes in the next presidential election? I think I know. But even if he is for real, is he relying too much on answers to the problems he points out that his political opponents will simply disagree with - too much government dependence for the poor, Kyoto treaty for global warming, condom demonstrations in grade school for reducing abortions?

Democratic Sen. John Kerry on Monday urged people of faith to work cooperatively on problems such as poverty, global warming and reducing the number of abortions - "godly tasks" that transcend the nation's culture wars.

In a speech laced with anecdotes of his own journey of faith, Kerry, a Roman Catholic, told students in a speech at Pepperdine University that "we can take up God's work as our own.

"Shame on us if we use our faith to divide and alienate people from one another, or if we draft God into partisan service," Kerry said. "As God gives us the ability to see, let us take up the tasks associated with loving our neighbors as ourselves."

Even with the nation riven over reproductive rights, Kerry said a shared goal should be reducing the high number of abortions. The first step, he said, it to accept the responsibility of making abortion rare.

"Even as a supporter of Roe v. Wade, I am compelled to acknowledge that the language both sides use on this subject can be unfortunately misleading and unconstructive. ... Everyone is worse off for it," the Massachusetts senator said.

The 2004 Democratic nominee is a potential candidate for the party nod in the next presidential election.

Kerry's remarks were among his most extensive ever on religion. He alluded to the 2004 election, saying his past reticence to openly discuss his faith allowed others to "draw the caricature for me. I will never let that happen again."

Reasons you shouldn't vote

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