Politics as usual

It is easy to get disillusioned with politics. Having been around and through more than one legislative session even in my thirties I realize that much of what is going in is just more of the same. Due to term limits and the passing of time the faces change and to some extent the tactics get more and less nasty, but the brawl is the same.

What gets lost is the simple fact that we deserve better. This was pointed out to me this week in several weeks at the national and local level. Maybe it hit me most when I was reading the Billings Gazette this morning and noticed a particular news items about politics that came with a warning label about bad language.

Some would say that it is easy to look at it from the outside and criticize, but I’ve been there in one role or another and like I said, it doesn’t change much. On top of that is the fact that perspective makes a lot of things more clear. A person can appreciate summer more in the depth of winter.

Somehow we have allowed ourselves to reward the worse behavior in politics. That’s not to say that politicians themselves are bad people. They are not. It is just that we have fed good people into a system that rewards them for their worst behavior. Great legislators that seek compromise are seen as soft. Those that don’t follow a strict party line are abandoned politically and socially, and maybe worst of all those that sometimes speak from a deep conviction are accused of a variety of intellectual crimes.

As a final note, this is not at all about party. Republicans and Democrats are coequal in the blame and there is plenty to go around. A third party – improbable at best. It is going to take a reformer internally who can stand alone. Someone with dare I say the communication skills of Bill Clinton with the conviction and willingness to buck convention of George Bush Jr. Crazy – probably.

Wrangling

Sometimes, often times, as Christians I think in the modern era we are focused on the wrong stuff. Professionally and personally I came into contact with two court cases that have added to that mental wrangling.

This week I had the opportunity to talk with someone legally connected to the partial birth abortion decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It basically upheld the ban on partial birth abortion. I won’t debate the facts of the case. However, I will point out that I read the opinion on the U.S. Supreme Court website and I will say that it is graphic and does make one rethink the theoretical nature of the debate. I will also say that it was seen as a victory for conservatives and in this case, conservative was closely tied to Christian conservatives.

In my expatriate state of Minnesota there has been a legal uproar over the possible installation of foot washing stations for Muslim students at the Minneapolis Technical and Community College. Again, without debating the merits the debate has largely centered on the term, “accommodation” and what is good for one religious group has to be provided for another. This time it is conservatives who seem to be blocking progress on this one and not making many friends in the Muslim community along the way.

Christians need to enter these debates thoughtfully. Clearly, Christ is on the side of life and since there is no other way than through Christ the foot washing stations are not Christian. However, what Christians need to be thoughtful about is how they use the courts and how they rely on the state as an entity.

I read this morning in Acts and I thought about how it was the persecution of the state that propelled the gospel into new areas, and I thought about how even Christ directed to give unto Caesar. Christians should be involved in the courts, politics, and other arenas. That is a great way for Christian to provide influence and leadership. However, Christ has to be bigger in our lives than our professions, no matter how noble those professions are. We must also be careful that we act in a way that promotes the justice that Christ himself promoted for all people in love so that they may see Christ in us and turn toward him. To what extent we as Christians let ourselves become a demographic, we do a disservice to the name of Jesus Christ and what he came to earth to do, which is to save individuals – not nations.

Deepish thoughts

I remember in high school sitting around and watching Saturday Night Live and one of my favorite sketches was “Deep Thoughts, with Jack Handy”. Played to a background of new age music and fields of flowers, the soft spoken announcer would read pseudo inspirational messages like, “Nothing tears a family apart – like a pack of wild dogs.” It was funny stuff.

As I have gotten older every once in a while I have deep thoughts, but anytime I acknowledge them as a deep thought I realize how polluted my mind is because I immediately think of Jack Handy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (There are many sources of pollution.) So this week seemed to be dominated by a number of deep intellectual thoughts that came from many directions.

This blog really isn’t about any of them, only a recognition that I don’t tend to do a lot of that kind of thinking anymore, and I think I’d feel better about life if I did. I tended to be more philosophical in my late teens and twenties. Is that loss of mental, philosophical rambling a sign or age, or would I in fact be a better thinker about many things if I exercised my brain more.