Sound-bite Politics

Now, I’m normally not someone who writes a lot about politics. But once in a while I just get so tired of the “rhetoric” that I have to blow off a little steam, if you know what I mean. And I try to not be partisan, because this “sound-bite, bumper-sticker, T-shirt” sort of sloganeering occurs on both sides of the aisle. Today, though, it happened to be Hillary Clinton (speaking in Unity, NH). It was on television, and as I passed through the room I heard her say, basically, “I’ve been involved in politics for four decades. And in that time we’ve elected ten presidents, and only three have been Democrats.” Accurate enough, but then comes the zinger! She said, “Imagine how much progress we haven’t made in all that time,” i.e., she implies, because a Republican president was elected seven times.

For crying out loud! Really? It’s hard to know where even to begin to describe how ludicrous the statement is. First of all, reality (and the progress we can make in the real world) is much more complex and multi-dimensional than whether a Republican or Democratic president is in office. This is just overwhelming oversimplification, besides being a form of the “complex question” kind of logical fallacy, tying together “progress” and the “Democratic party” as if the two must be accepted or rejected together. It’s an example of what’s called a “non sequitur,” i.e. something that just doesn’t follow. It “doesn’t follow” that just because Republican presidents were elected 70% of the time that less progress was made than if Democratic presidents had been elected. In fact, it’s something we can’t know, a “hypothesis contrary to fact,” as it’s called, an argument from something that didn’t happen, and the consequences of which are unknown and unmeasurable.

There’s certainly a lot more that could be said about this particular remark, and about political posturing in general. I only want to encourage you to think clearly about the issues, and not to be led around aimlessly by some rhetorician’s nose ring, influenced by things that may “sound good” but that are anything but “good and sound.”

Thank you for my few minutes on the soap box!!

The Areopagus Christian Study Center

NOTE: This is a shameless plug for a ministry with which I’m involved.

The Areopagus is an interdenominational Christian education ministry and study center dedicated to serving the metro-Atlanta area.

The mission of The Areopagus is to help equip Christians for ministry and to effectively engage our society and culture with the transforming truth and love of Jesus Christ. To this end, we provide a creative and substantive curriculum that expands their knowledge base, stimulates critical thinking, and challenges them to live faithfully and consistently in accordance with the principles and practices of a Biblical Christian worldview.

The Areopagus sponsors seminars, workshops, and forums on a variety of topics relevant to contemporary Christian education and ministry, including…

Biblical studies
Christian apologetics
Christian history
Comparative worldviews and religions
Contemplative Christian spirituality
Contemporary cultural issues
Literature and the arts
Science and the Christian faith

“In the midst of a society that has lost its moral bearings and is being irreparably corrupted by the insidious forces of secularism, compulsive materialism, and mindless hedonism, the ministry of the Areopagus is all the more essential in terms of challenging Christians to intelligently and effectively engage our culture with the transforming light and truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

– Dr. Jefrey Breshears
Founder and President, The Areaopagus
from “A Retrospective on the Past,
A Vision for the Future”

Please pray for and help support the ministry of The Areopagus here in the Atlanta area and visit our online site here: The Areopagus. You may find a number of forums, seminars, or book reviews in which you’ll be interested.

Pastoral ministry is hard …

Harder than most people know. Much harder than I ever suspected, I think.

Oh, it’s not the study that’s difficult. It can be demanding, yes, but it’s also very rich and rewarding — intellectually stimulating and spiritually satisfying. And it’s not the teaching and preaching that take a toll at last. Any pastor worth his salt loves to teach his people and loves to preach God’s Word. It’s not the long hours that are exhausting, or the many things that have to be done — meetings attended, visits made, calls returned, emails answered, folks counseled, problems solved, friends walked with, and so on. None of that is what makes ministry hard.

No, what makes it hard are the responses to the work, which (with a few exceptions) are generally things like indifference, boredom, persistent disapproval, criticism, disrespect, insult. Some of the latest figures I can find indicate that 80% of pastors (and 84% of pastor’s spouses) live in a relentless state of discouragement. There was a time in our country, not too long ago, when the pastoral profession was held in some esteem, both in the church and in the community. Now pastors are among the least honorable, and 70% or more say that pastoral ministry has depleted their sense of self-worth and confidence. Fifty percent of pastors say they would leave the ministry tomorrow, if they could, but they have no other way to make a living. The majority of pastor’s wives surveyed said the most destructive event that cricket free ringtones | free verizon wireless ringtones | free kyocera ringtones | caller download hotlink ringtones | free mobile phone ringtones | free ringtones for motorola cell phone | cricket free phone ringtones | download free ringtones virgin mobile | real music ringtones | free ringtones for cricket cell phone | cell cricket free phone ringtones | free jamster ringtones | much music ringtones | free real music ringtones for nextel | free ringtones sprint | download verizon ringtones | cricket phone ringtones | send free ringtones to your phone | make your own mp3 ringtones | info personal polyphonic remember ringtones | has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

I wonder what the symptoms of burn-out are. Some days I just weep, and I don’t know why. Sometimes I fantasize about running away, and I wonder if it would even matter. I feel exhausted. I never sleep too well. My blood pressure is elevated. And I just may be self-medicating on caffeine!

Pray for my family, and for me. Pastoral ministry is hard!

The latest from Missional Press!

Planting Churches in the Real World by Joel Rainey

My good friend Joel’s first book is about to be released from Missional Press, and let me say that it’s a delightful and eminently profitable read. As the publisher’s press release notes:

Most church planting literature highlights enormously successful ministries. While such ministries can serve as a noble benchmark for every church planter, they are far from the norm. Most who plant churches will never see their name in lights, and all who plant churches will find it to be one of the most difficult things they have ever sought to accomplish.

Here is wise counsel from a faithful pastor learned well while planting churches in the real world.

(Missional Press is offering a pre-publication sale. The book retails for $14.99 but if you enter the code CJ5E9D at checkout, you will receive 20% off your purchase of Planting Churches in the Real World. Click here to purchase the book. The book should be shipping around the end of April.)

On the road again …

Well, I’ve spent a couple of days making my way from Atlanta, GA to Manhattan, KS … driving by way of Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. Total road time was about 14 hours. Some folks, I suppose, would think that a waste of time, an unnecessary burden, too much trouble, and anything but fun. They would be wrong!

I stopped all along the way — to get gas for the car, to have a bite to eat, to grab some coffee (after which I had to stop at the rest areas) — and all along the way, then, I met folks, all kinds of folks, and just got to spend a little time with people I didn’t know until the moment our ways crossed. I hope it was helpful for them; it was very, very good for me! The regularity of everyday life can, if we’re not careful (and we’re often not), breed complacency in us, and we get settled and comfortable and “at home” in the world, forgetting the mission we’ve been given to the world.

Let me recommend that you get on the road again as soon as possible!

Stained Glass Masquerade

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain?
But if the invitation’s open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade.

– Casting Crowns

Quote of the Day!

[T]hey are wrong, they are reliably, verifiably, and factually incorrect. Richard Dawkins is wrong. Daniel C. Dennett is wrong. Christopher Hitchens is drunk, and he’s wrong. Michel Onfray is French, and he’s wrong. Sam Harris is so superlatively wrong that it will require the development of esoteric mathematics operating simultaneously in multiple dimensions to fully comprehend the orders of magnitude of his wrongness.

– Vox Day

A further word about Journeys

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Thanks, Todd & Marty, for sharing your journeys with us, and calling us to the journey as well!

An Open Letter to Senator Obama

The Audacity of Hope: A Second-Generational Query

by Sherif Girgis

Dear Senator Obama:

As an immigrant from Kenya, your father found new hope in America’s noble principles and vast opportunities. The same promise brought my parents here from Egypt when I was still too young to thank them. Now you have inspired my generation with your vision of a country united around the same ideals of liberty and justice, “filled with hope and possibility for all Americans.”

But do you mean it? ….

Read Girgis’s article HERE at National Review Online.

Same-Sex Unions and the Sermon on the Mount

In case you missed this bit of profound biblical exegesis and theological scholarship, Sen. Barack Obama (D. Ill.) said Sunday in Ohio that same-sex unions should enjoy state-recognized legal status and rights. That’s nothing new in Obama’s platform, of course. What was staggering, I must say, was this statement he then made: “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount ….” Now, if that alone isn’t confusing enough (What part of the Sermon on the Mount might he have in mind, for example?), he then ended that sentence with this: “… which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.”

Thanks to Sen. Obama, we now know that Paul contradicts Jesus on the matter of homosexuality, that the Bible as a whole doesn’t have a unified and coherent message, and that the Sermon on the Mount in particular supports state-recognized legal status and rights for same-sex marriage unions. Wow! Welcome to the wild and wacky world of postmodern hermeneutics and religious pluralism — à la political campaigning — run amok!!

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