Two New eBooks at Amazon Kindle!
- Details
- Written by Rex M. Rogers
There’s something inherently problematic in the term “Christian politics.”
While God’s will is stated in Scripture, good people, including Christian people, disagree on scriptural interpretation. While God’s perspective on moral issues like lying, stealing, or murdering is abundantly clear, many other contemporary issues are not directly addressed. So which position on a non-addressed issue is the Christian view, and thus, who has a corner on Christian politics?
Of course politicians use Christianity, or at least some affirmation of their fidelity, to promote their agendas and their opportunities for electoral office. These are the “Political Christians,” politicians who glom onto the faith for perceived political advantage. Perhaps some do this out of genuine commitment to the faith, but surely many others do so disingenuously. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to ascertain in which category a politician falls.
Whether or not politicians openly declare faith or how they do it varies with the political culture of the times. JFK downplayed his Catholic heritage. Jimmy Carter campaigned and won as a southern believer. Four years later, many Christians jilted Carter for Ronald Reagan, thinking he was a better man of faith because of his political views. Both George Bushes and Bill Clinton publicly affirmed their Christian faith. Barack Obama and his 2008 Republican opponent, John McCain, did so as well. For the record, I doubted the latter more than the former, but neither one makes much of a believable case.
All presidents, beginning with George Washington, publicly asked God to bless America, even LBJ and Richard Nixon, two of the most morally bankrupt men ever to hold the presidency.
Perhaps we’d generate more light if we talked about Christians in politics, rather than Christian politics. I believe my political views are consistent with my understanding of the Christian faith, but I must admit that on many issues I cannot prove this. I can only say what I believe. I am a Christian trying to live out my faith, but I cannot claim to live it perfectly. So it is with everyone else.
Seems to me Christians in politics is ideal, while Christian politics is an ideal.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.
- Details
- Written by Rex M. Rogers
America needs more than jobs. It needs leadership that truly believes in the innate greatness of America's original ideals and its people. We don't have that on either side of the aisle.
We only have politicians-as-tacticians, people more adept at talking political minutia than vision and destiny. A person who got his or her jollies talking about political processes and various government activities used to be called a “Policy Wonk”—think Bill Clinton. Now, it seems, pols running for office, including the presidency, have all become Policy Wonks, arguing on the stump and in debates about which Republican or Democrat approach to governing is going to—wait for it—“create jobs.” Like that’s going to happen.
Americans need a recaptured sense of who we are and a recast sense of what we’re capable of doing. Not Pollyanna platitudes but, still, some bottled optimism based upon a keen understanding of why life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness produced for decades a culture, country, and economy attracting immigrants from around the globe.
We’ve lost confidence in who we were and who we are. Worse, a lot of Americans, at least media, intellectual, and political elites, don’t believe in who we were.
We have a sluggish economy, but America isn’t so much in an economic crisis as a leadership and hope crisis. We really don’t believe anymore that there can be a “better tomorrow.”
Add to this a crippling debt, which is rooted in our moral decline more than simple economics, and you get our current dilemma. We’re in over our heads and we don’t know what to do next. One thing's certain, though to listen to pols running for President you wouldn't know it: we cannot right the ship without sacrifice. Few wanna-be Presidents are willing to say so.
So, what do we need? America needs leaders with moral character and courage, men and women who believe in what’s best about America so they can help us do what’s best for America. Who will be our Joshua?
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.
- Details
- Written by Rex M. Rogers
A host of Wanna-Be-President politicians have declared their candidacy or are expected soon to do so. We don’t know which one will ultimately become their party’s 2012 nominee, but I suggest that the candidates will have a better shot at maintaining (Democrat) or getting (Republican) the nod if they observe these commandments:
1—Thou shalt not claim religious commitment for the sake of poll numbers.
2—Thou shalt not commit adultery, have affairs, hook-up, etc.
3—Thou shalt not mention, much less affirm or encourage, “birther” or “truther” conspiracy theories.
4—Thou shalt not ignore the national debt or the budget deficit.
5—Thou shalt not attack political rivals, Americans all, using vitriolic, vehement, vituperative, vicious, vulgar, or otherwise vile language.
6—Thou shalt not lie.
7—Thou shalt not steal.
8—Thou shalt not use double-talk to avoid answering questions.
9—Honor your father and your mother and every other elder.
10—Thou shalt not equate your political views with The Christian way of doing things.
There’s more, but this is a start. If candidates would just do this much, actually demonstrate that character is not dead, both candidates and the electorate would be the better for it.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.
- Details
- Written by Rex M. Rogers
Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm recently tweeted:
"Another guy guv admits 2 cheating on his wife. Maybe we need more women governors. Guys: keep ur pants zipped, for Pete's sake. #Arnold"
Of course Governor Granholm was referring to scandal news plaguing the house of Schwarzenegger wherein he admitted having fathered a child some thirteen or more years ago by a woman other than his wife of twenty-five years, Maria Shriver. And to add insult to injury he’s apparently kept it from Maria and all others since. In other words, he’s lived a lie for more than a decade in front of his wife, four children, and the California citizenry.
Some have suggested former Governor Granholm would not have made this comment relative to a Democrat. But I think this is unfair and sells her short. Plenty of people are fed up with male politicians’ blatant sexual infidelities demonstrating their lack of character if not also lack of wisdom, and to feel this way isn’t about partisanship.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is just the latest secret sex saga. We’ve been subjected to a running tally of these stories: Dominique Strauss-Kahn—the former IMF chief recently accused of rape, Eliot Spitzer—the former New York Governor now turned CNN anchor (I still don’t know what CNN is thinking)—cross-state-lines prostitute scandal, Mark Sanford—the former South Carolina Governor with an Argentine “soulmate,” David Patterson, John Ensign, David Vitter, James McGreevey, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, or way back, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy. Even John McCain and Newt Gingrich get into the act if you check their record. And there are many more both present and past if you reach back even further, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, FDR.
So it may be that former Governor Granholm is correct. Maybe we do need to elect more women political leaders.
It's not to say that women are invulnerable to infidelity or so-called philandering. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in birds-n-bees to recognize that women were involved in nearly all these stories (McGreevey being one exception). But still, I'm with Governor Granholm on this one.
I’m ready to give women with character an opportunity to lead.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.
- Details
- Written by Rex M. Rogers
Good public discourse, open dialogue and discussion in the marketplace of ideas, is a staple of democracy. Without it there is no chance for government of, by, and for the people.
For good public discourse to take place certain requisites or attributes must be put in place within the body politic.
--People must embrace, then instill in culture and government, basic human rights: freedom of worship, freedom of speech, even expression, right to life, law, and order based on a public moral consensus.
--People who believe in objective truth.
--Freedom of expression must be recognized, protected, and preserved in law.
--People must respect others, which is to say, they must listen, which is to say, a certain discourse etiquette must be established.
--Absence of decorum in public discourse is a seed of the destruction of the marketplace of ideas.
--Discourse depends upon not necessarily an educated public, in the sense of formal schooling though this is good, but upon an informed public.
--For discourse to result in general wellbeing, that is, for democracy to work and for it to last, people must cultivate moral virtue, that is, a capacity to recognize good and to choose it—this only comes in acknowledging the place and purpose of religion.
--For discourse to function freely and productively to good ends, people must understand that disagreement can serve the good if it is based upon critiques of ideas and not upon criticism of ones holding the ideas.
--The degree to which disagreements degenerate to people upon people attacks is the degree to which disagreements no longer serve the public good.
Discourse that is little more than shouting matches, i.e. an absence of decorum, is what most radio and television talk shows have become. It is what much of electioneering or political campaigning has become.
Calling leaders in the political opposition derisive names or using cartoons and other materials to demean members of the political opposition in the name of humor does not credibly advance ones ideas. It’s actually a show of weakness. If you can’t win a point in discussion via moral suasion than you attack the other speaker or posture loudly to out shout the other. Weakness.
It seems today that if you disagree with someone you are ipso facto believed to be attacking the person. So it goes in our politically correct culture. Yet meanwhile and ironically, verbal attacks upon people with whom you disagree have become the order of the day. The American body politic desperately needs to rediscover the values and rules of engagement for discourse modeled by the Founding Fathers.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.
- Details
- Written by Rex M. Rogers
Someone once said, “Where you stand on an issue depends upon where you sit.” True, none of us see the whole picture because in our humanity we can only look from certain angles. We're limited by space, time, and finiteness.
We forget the past, sometimes a blessing, sometimes a dangerous weakness. We can’t see the future, not really, not even tomorrow. But we’re still divinely given the ability to reason and learn, and we’re divinely charged with exercising stewardship, which is to say making responsible decision, during the days of our lives.
Right now, we need to make some key and good decisions about America, because this is “our day” and our country and culture, sorry to say, are in trouble. As in our individual lives, most of our trouble we made for ourselves. Sure, some of it happened to us without our volition or contribution—maybe others are responsible, maybe environmental developments. But most of it happened because we did some things and didn’t do other things. In the end, why and how things happen do matter, but it matters more how we go from here.
One brief blog couldn’t begin to summarize all we need to do to get America back on track, even if everyone stood in the same place and agreed on how to proceed. But at least we can make a few suggestions on some big issues:
--Identify leaders with ideals, moral courage, resolve, an unshakeable belief in American values, and an optimistic vision of its future—capable of restoring America’s hope. I’m not talking about platitudes but transformational conviction. I’ve yet to hear from President Barack Obama, Congressman John Boehner, or anyone on the Right, Left, or even in the Tea Party who is truly willing to speak forthrightly with passion, logic, and good ideas. We’ve lost confidence in our selves, our values, and the idea of progress toward a better tomorrow. This, for a culture and a country, is stagnating and potentially deadly.
--Bring American troops home from Afghanistan. I’ve written about this before. Political leaders in Washington, D.C., no matter the party, cannot articulate a cogent and coherent rationale, that makes sense, for this war’s continuance. It’s costing us blood and treasure for no foreseeable gain.
--Develop a national budget that actually addresses the profound national debt and budget deficits we keep building like there’s no tomorrow. Not to be melodramatic, but if we keep living beyond our means, pushing the budget-cut-pain into the future, there may not be a tomorrow for our culture, our country, or our children.
--To attain such a budget, entitlements for seniors like Medicare and Social Security, and a whole list of other sacred cows amounting to about 93% of the national budget must be discussed and curtailed. Anyone who says, which right now includes most politicians in Washington, D.C., that we can balance the budget, much less reduce the debt, without touching these programs is either a dissembler or a financial boob.
--Develop and pass a reasonable, common sense immigration reform law that honors American identity, protects our borders, preserves our laws, and allows illegals a path to citizenship while respecting their humanity. This sounds like a mouthful, but if we could get past partisan posturing and idealist notions that anyone should be permitted entry for any reason, we could reform the system. Right now, border agents are at risk, illegal drugs, guns, and people are coming across borders regularly, and illegals already here are being placed on healthcare and welfare rolls with no visible means of making their own way. Meanwhile, what it means to be an American—and I don’t mean this chauvinistically or worse, racially—is being diluted to nothing. Other countries identify their national character and boundaries; why can’t we?
As I said, we need to do more. But if we could pull off this much we’d be well down the track to getting America rolling again. I’m wondering when we can find a few honest, bold leaders with the vision and capacity to lead when others are not yet following.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.