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It seems like politics has come to dominate our lives, but is politics after all the end-all-be-all of life?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #8 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
It is now virtually impossible in the U.S.A to make a statement—about almost anything—without someone assigning it political or partisan or ideological bias or intention.
In other words, everything is politics.
In one sense, this is true if you define politics as the “art of the possible,” the continual effort through negotiated interaction to make decisions and propel progress.
But politics that is government and public policy, not so much. Politics is not everything.
In other words, there’s more that matters in life than politics, whether everyday negotiated interaction or the process of government and public policy.
But it’s the latter that seems to have taken over our culture.
Even as we continue to walk through the pandemic, too often, common sense, health and medical counsel, and spiritual perspectives are set aside for the all-knowing god called Politics.
In Scripture, “Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’” (Mark 12:17).
This we do because God created government for our good: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad…”
And then the Apostle Paul gets down to brass tacks, saying: “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed” (Romans 13:1-7).
That said, the Bible also says, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
So, we honor, and we render to Caesar what is due, but we render to God the things that are God’s. It is our responsibility as Christians to discern the difference.
While giving honor to those in authority, the American people’s tendency has been to build up our leaders to bigger-than-life positions, to look upon them as virtual saviors. This tendency to overstate political leaders’ capacity to solve our problems has increased in the early 21st Century, at least in terms of partisanship or, increasingly, ideology. In so doing we’ve become more divisive, that is,” My man or woman is our ‘savior’ but yours is the ‘devil.’”
There’s no middle ground now. You’re for us or against us. You’re a patriot or a traitor. Our favorite political leader is going to take us to the Promised Land. Yours would lead us, well, to Hell on earth.
Meanwhile the Bible says, “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish” (Psalm 146:3).
This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.
We’d do well to remember that political leaders have a shelf-life. They are but finite human beings with all the wonders, faults, and shortcomings this entails. Sooner or later, they all will fail us.
Politics is important, but politics is not the end-all-be-all of life.
In his book Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom has Become Its Greatest Threat, the Christian scholar and social commentator Os Guinness said, “The first thing to say about politics is that politics is not the first thing.”
Politics is not the sum total of our existence. Sure, some of our challenges require political solutions, but for the most part, politics is downstream from culture and society.
What happens in politics is a reflection or extension of what’s happening in culture and society. By far, most of our personal and social problems today are not political but spiritual.
The solutions we require, therefore, lie not in political policies but within our understanding of God, what he says about human beings and the reality he created and defined, and our willingness to acknowledge his truth.
Americans’ freedom and well-being have never depended simply upon leaders or politics.
Our freedoms and our wellbeing depend upon ideals:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The Declaration of Independence is not Holy Scripture, but it is an incredibly well-worded, prescient document that set down ideals in 1776 for this “First New Nation.”
The United States of America is an experiment in self-governance. It is different from any other on earth, what’s called American exceptionalism. This is not an arrogant claim to better-than-thou but a recognition that no other nation was built upon not government-given but God-given human rights. For more than two hundred years, with adjustments, the American system has worked amazingly well.
One of the keys to its success has been a confidence in people, individuals free to live out their faith in God, to live according to his principles, and to exercise the talents he granted us.
Our freedom has not come from politics or politicians or partisanship or ideology as such. It comes from our Sovereign God, who entrusted us to maintain it. To take freedom and well-being deeper into this century, this wise perspective needs to be rediscovered.
Everything may be politics in a broad sense. But politics is most assuredly not everything.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
The Death of Discussion
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
Given the division, rancor, and politicization of virtually everything—along with the social media-driven “hater” mentality—have we witnessed the death of discussion?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #6 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
During the U.S. Presidential campaign in February 2016, I stopped posting political content on social media. I just quit cold turkey.
Before this I’d tried to post about issues. I didn’t mention just one but always several candidates, attempted to be non-partisan, never spoke negatively of the previous Administration, and in no way attacked Democrat or Republican candidates or otherwise use my social media to campaign. In retrospect, I guess I was naïve. I actually tried to conduct a discussion about important issues. Usually, it didn’t happen.
I found that people didn’t read the nuances of what I said, and they didn’t discuss the issue. Mostly, they reacted emotionally, defending their partisan view and/or candidate—who I had often not even mentioned—and frequently did so with rancor not found in my posts.
I also noticed that my comments about political issues, in part because they got hi-jacked, divided my family, friends, and colleagues. People just couldn’t hang together for an issue discussion without quickly voting each other off the island.
At that point I decided political posting wasn’t worth dividing or losing friends. So I stopped.
Some of my friends have stopped referencing any social or political topic on social media too.
It isn’t that they don’t have opinions or that they don’t care, though perhaps some are less politically interested than others. They don’t want to get into a back-and-forth vitriol on opposite ends of the teeter-totter.
Think for a moment about “panels” on major television news channels:
these panels have largely devolved into shout fests about who can talk overtop the other. There’s not much reasoned discourse.
This same kind of phenomenon showed up not long ago when my wife and I attended a home-gathering comprised of people from the same church—middle class Midwesterners, most who’d grown up locally and graduated from the same high school and who otherwise had much in common. It was a very nice evening. Then someone mentioned the U.S. President relative to a given political issue. Just like that the group divided, including a few prickly comments and negative facial expressions that stayed that way until someone changed the subject.
Amazing. Good friends suddenly turned edgy when politics came up.
So the old maxim stands: “Never talk about politics or religion in polite company.”
Years ago, I wrote a book called “Christian Liberty: Living for God in a Changing Culture” (Baker, 2003). I talked about God’s moral absolutes—not a long list by the way— for all times, countries, and cultures, which we ignore at our own peril.
And I talked about the enormous room for discretion, or better, discernment with which God charged us as a way of making good decisions about cultural matters (Phil. 1:9-11). As long as our attitudes, viewpoints, and actions do not violate the moral will of God, he gave us the liberty to decide and to be different.
But I said then and I still believe today, Christian liberty is the least understood and least practiced doctrine of the Bible. I cannot prove this, but I experience it regularly. People in the Christian community do not allow for differences in others.
This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, look for us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.
Growing numbers of people in our country and culture do not want people to speak if their views diverge from what the dominant group considers correct.
The answer to opposing views is not a free and open debate on the merits of the argument but to silence, somehow to keep the other view from being heard.
If it is heard, then the solution is to react with emotional diatribe or attacks on the character of others who hold the “wrong view.” People who disagree with your view, or who might offer critique, are called “haters.”
The First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Speech is no longer considered a sacred political ideal for whom men and women have given the last full measure of devotion to protect.
We’ve come to a point in a so-called post-truth culture in which politics and polarization are so pronounced we can no longer communicate, resulting in a virtual inability to discuss, much less debate, any social-political issue without it exploding into defensive partisanship, ideological condemnation, or lack of civility.
Discussion, at least public discourse, is dead on arrival.
I’d like to discuss political issues via social media but to do so invites dysfunction.
I think this is sad, among believers an absence of Christian liberty,and among the public, a disappearing understanding of what Freedom of Speech means in and to a constitutional republic.
This trend, whether from Left or Right, is not good for the future of this country.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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These kinds of disclaimers in articles have interested me for years. Here are two from the same piece today:
“A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media.”
“A foreign diplomat, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief the media.”
In other words, people blab who are actually not permitted to do so. Yet they spill the beans.
I realize these may not be just loose lips that could sink ships—sure, maybe this person is a maverick, but then again they may in reality be staff who were indeed “authorized” by org superiors to speak, just not as official spokesmen.
Why would an org do this? To test the waters. To gauge reactions. To preserve org plausible deniability. To distance superiors from any backlash. To plant narratives. That said, please note I am sharing this insight on condition of anonymity because I am not authorized to speak by anyone, at least no one in the Biden Admin.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021 *This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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I’m not a fan of presidential impeachment.
1868: Andrew Johnson - 1999: Bill Clinton - 2019, 2021: Donald Trump.
1974, in the wake of Watergate, facing impeachment and near-certain conviction, Richard M Nixon announced his resignation. VP Gerald R Ford was sworn in.
If anyone deserved impeachment and a vote removing him from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” it was Nixon. But a month later, Ford famously pardoned Nixon. Ford was hammered for this and it likely cost him reelection. But I agreed with him and most others, much later, did as well.
Now in 2021, people are saying Joe Biden should be impeached because the Afghanistan withdrawal was not the “extraordinary success” he called it but an embarrassing, deadly, unnecessary debacle, and still an ongoing threat to American security.
I understand the anger and frustration. But impeachment isn’t the answer, nor is impeachment du jour good for the country.
Impeachments are partisan circuses and conviction is difficult. Just look at history. No impeached pres has been removed from office. More prescient than others, Ford knew a trial, even after Nixon departed, would simply divide the nation.
Impeachment would do that now, resulting in more harm than healing.
If you think Biden did the best he could, then impeachment is an unwarranted distraction. If you think Biden did badly, even immorally, then impeachment is still a deal with the Devil; do you really want VP Kamala Harris as Pres?
Politicians can be held accountable in many ways. Best one, even with debates about voting integrity, is called an election.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
Embarrassed for a Nation
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- Written by: Rex M. Rogers
I’m not a person who gets embarrassed. Maybe that’s some chink in my armor. I don’t know. But I’ve learned this about myself over the years.
I have to say that in the past couple of years, I confess I’ve periodically felt embarrassed for my country.
—when a President acted boorishly on the world stage, making juvenile comments about, well, a lot of things.
—when mayors, district attorneys, and sometimes governors blithely dismissed rioters, refusing to prosecute and hold them accountable before the law.
—when universities, corporations, and American elites rushed to adopt new sexual orientation and gender identity and critical race theory paradigms, ostensibly to demonstrate their woke virtue, but in actuality to preserve and develop their position and profit.
—when elected officials acted like wanna-be dictators, mandating a long list of lockdown restrictions in the name of public health.
—when a President talks about the debacle in Afghanistan in alternative reality terms no one, except maybe those who report to him, believes is happening on the ground.
It’s not so much a matter of pride or patriotism as it is a sense of lost moral credibility, a loss of place and purpose in the world that looks to this last best hope for democracy.
Ideals are important. Losing them to hubris or irrational idealism is not something I find comforting.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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I read articles written by conservatives, liberals, and leftists, many of which now regularly resort to juvenile insults. Name-calling masquerading as erudition.
Words like moron, maggot, idiot, their softer equivalents goon, clown, jerk, twit, the all-purpose hater, or the latest nasty epithet du jour are now the common parlance of pundits, politicians…and people on social media. Some even use vulgarities.
Former President Trump is a leading if not the lead example of this, but he’s not alone. Playground rhetoric has been used by the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senator Chuck Schumer, and many more politicians. It’s like there’s an arms race to see who can come up with the lowest, most childish nickname or rejoinder.
But what good is this kind of cheap shot? Calling someone with a different point of view a derogatory name doesn’t win the argument? It doesn’t encourage people to change their mind. Indeed, it can harden opposition. It only demeans, the speaker more than the recipient.
Name-calling has tainted US politics since before there was a USA. But insults accomplished nothing back then, and they accomplish nothing now. They only divide, which is the enemy of consensus and achievement.
We can’t make others change, but we can raise the level of our own discourse. We can have a sense of self-respect that intentionally improves the caliber of our vocabulary and incisiveness of our critical thinking. We can never use juvenile name-calling again, which is what most of our Mothers told us in 1st Grade anyway.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.