President-elect Obama, the One, is less than a month to his inauguration and he’s already getting tested.

From CNN, At least 155 killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Israeli Maj. Avital Leibovich told CNN the military began the attacks “in order to preserve the security situation in Israel.”

“We are prepared for any type of scenario right now. We have our own operation and assessments as we go along, and we are ready to continue this operation as long as it takes,” Leibovich said by phone from Tel Aviv.

The campaign is over, Barack.

Pray for Barack Obama, and his cabinet.

From CNN, Poll finds great expectations for Obama,

“My fervent prayer is that there will be peace on Earth in all nations, and let all countries unite together to make this dream come true,” said iReporter Shari Atukorala of Kandy, Sri Lanka. “To the President-elect Barack Obama: Sir, you can do this for all of us.”

Utterly amazing.

Is this perception of Obama common? Maybe so. Also from the CNN article,

The public thinks it’s likely that Obama will improve race relations, improve economic conditions, bring stability to the financial markets, make the U.S. safer from terrorism, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce global warming, win the war in Afghanistan and remove U.S. troops from Iraq without causing a major upheaval in that country.

How much of this adoration, do you think, has gone (and will go) to Obama’s head? At what point does admiration for one’s leader turn into adoration, albeit worship, of one’s leader?

On the one hand, reality may rear its ugly head and simply educate the many ignorant, but sincere, idealists who have put their faith in Obama; on the other hand, the cult of worship, is an enticing temptation, which strokes at the very essence of the narcissist’s ego.

Christians: pray for Obama

Via Malkin, it seems we have a new slogan, what with the election of Barack Obama.

Wrong!

Truth be told, Barack Obama is half black and half white. In other words, he’s biracial.

Martin Luther King said, in his I Have a Dream speech, that he dreamed of the day when his children would

not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

So, let’s encourage supporters of Barack Obama to start following Dr. King’s wishes, and not focus so much attention on the color of Obama’s skin. Or, if they must draw attention to it, to at least begin admitting that, Our President is Black & White.

Opponents of California’s Proposition 8 – “Marriage Protection Act”, which clarified that marriage is between a man and a woman, claim that the proposition was all about hatred (e.g., “No on 8, End Hate” and “Separate Church & H8”).

They prove it by holding hateful, anti-Mormon marches after the measure was passed by the voters.

images – LA Times

The California Marriage Protection Act, aka Proposition 8, was passed by popular vote on Tuesday, November 4th. The proposal was to add the following 14 words to the California constitution:

As of Wednesday, November 5th, lawsuits have been filed by Gay Rights backers to challenge the will of the people, and protests against the Proposition were occurring in the predominantly gay city of West Hollywood.

Lest anyone think that rights have been eliminated, by the passage of Proposition 8, one should read the already existing California Family Code 297.5. An excerpt:

Bottomline: Proposition 8 it isn’t about hate, inequality or discrimination; it’s about protecting marriage between a man and a woman.

Note: as an aside, check this “No on 8” ad which displays blatant hatred towards Mormons.

Senator Barack Obama has won the election for President of the United States and, essentially, the leader of the free world.

God, help us.

In 1 Timothy, Paul stated,

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

– 1 Timothy 2:1-4 ESV

Yes, Christians… God. Help. Us. As Christians, we have been admonished to not only submit to our earthly authorities, but to pray for them as well.

In Romans, Paul stated,

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. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

– Romans 13:1-5 ESV

God, help us.

Help us to pray for our leaders, despite the fact that we may not only disagree with them, but that they may be hostile to us and our beliefs. Help us to submit to our leaders, thereby demonstrating that we are not a subversive element, but are to be trusted as exemplary citizens.

While I believe Senator Barack Obama to be, among other things:

• dangerously naive with regards to his vision of hope,
• blatantly socialist with regards to his economic policies,
• and, most distressingly, no friend of the unborn;

I know that my Christian duty is to extend prayers for him, his cabinet, as well as other federal, state, and local authorities.

Despite the general conservative contention that having a President Obama will bring a sorry state of affairs to our country, it would do us well to put our situation in perspective, with regards to the context of history at the time of the writing of many New Testament epistles.

In 1 Peter, Peter stated,

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

–1 Peter 2:13-15 ESV

Through his teaching, my pastor, Dr. David Thomas, has greatly helped me in keeping such a perspective clearly in view. This has especially been revealed in some recent lectures he gave on 1 Peter (see mp3 files here). In the 26 March 2008 session, he pointed out that:

• Peter and Paul have made an assertion that all human authority proceeds from God;
• To respect and submit to human authority is to respect and submit to God;
• Such a respect and submission has nothing to do with whether or not you agree with that authority;

And, with regards to the moral and ethical conditions of the leaders we pray for, he gave this comparison as context for the first century church,

• Of the first 12 emperors (Julius Caesar through Domitian), only one was heterosexual, the rest were either bisexual or homosexual;
• Nero, to whom Paul appealed (in the book of Acts), and the one who was Caesar when Paul wrote the book of Romans, married a 13 year-old boy;
• Nero kicked his wife in the stomach until she miscarried;

In the same message, he stated,

Christians recognize authority as invested in mortal, fallen and, sometimes, unbelieving and cruel individuals… as being a reflection of the authority of God. …What they’re [Peter and Paul] saying is, have respect for the authority that’s invested in these mortal men, out of reverence for God.

Now, more than ever, we Christians must pray for our leaders, including President Obama.

North? South?

Left? Right?

– image © 2008 A. R. Lopez

In California, among the many state propositions up for a vote, one of the most heated is Proposition 8. In 2000, California voters passed Proposition 22, “which added a section to the California Family Code to formally define marriage in California as being between a man and a woman” (Wikipedia). In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court “ruled that the statute enacted by Proposition 22 and other statutes that limit marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. It also held that individuals of the same sex have the right to marry under the California Constitution” (Wikipedia).

Enter Proposition 8. Here is the entire text of Proposition 8, as per the California Voter’s Guide,

Note that the California Marriage Protection Act proposes to add a sum total of 14 words to the California Constitution.

Opponents to the proposition claim that the proposition is discriminatory and that it takes away rights. One of the mantras chanted is “Don’t eliminate marriage for anyone.”

Yet, such thinking ignores the fact that the government does not sanction marriage for anyone. Typically, one cannot marry another person if one is already married to someone else. It’s also highly unlikely that a 6 year-old boy and girl would be granted a marriage license by the government. The same could be said for a 20 year-old man and 18 year-old woman, if they were brother and sister. What’s more, it’s highly unlikely that the state government in California would sanction a marriage between two adult men and four adult women. It would seem, therefore, that we already have a form of discrimination, with regards to who can, and cannot, get married. In other words, the government already eliminates marriage for some.

Have you ever stopped to consider just why the government has an interest in sanctioning marriages in the first place? I can tell you one reason that they don’t sanction marriages for… love. Nope. You’d be hard pressed to find any mention of love on an application for a marriage license. Whether or not two people, who wish to get married, love each other is really of no concern to the government.

Why is that?

It’s really very simple. The government recognizes, as just about every civilization since humans began, that the covenant of marriage is the foundation and basis for the family unit. The family unit, it turns out, is the basis for a well functioning society. And a well functioning society is something that the government is very interested in. When a male and female commit to each other, the natural and general result is a family (i.e., children). This is a process that has been the cornerstone of virtually every civilized society. This family unit by marriage commitment, it should be noted, is something that a same-sex couple is incapable of attaining by natural means. Note that as a rule, by nature, and by design (HT: Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason), marriage between a man and a woman provides the family unit which the government has an interest in regulating.

One last point to be noted is that the only “right” which same-sex proponents claim will be eliminated by Proposition 8 is the sanctioning of the government, and as I’ve shown above, this is not an inherent right. No other “rights” will be eliminated. Same-sex couples already have access to domestic partner health benefits, they already have the protection of employment discrimination laws, they can freely practice their lifestyle, etc.

So, why is there the need for Proposition 8? That, too, is simple. It’s because those that advocate same-sex marriage want not the right (which they already have) but the blessing of the government. By getting the blessing of the government, they wish to impose their behavior, as normalized, upon the rest of society – including those that would consider their behavior as wrong.

Advocates of same-sex marriage would have you believe that the issue is about intolerance. In that, they are correct, for the position they take is intolerant of any position that does not accept their behavior as normal.

Further Ref:

Jennifer Roback Morse

Stand to Reason blog

As I noted in this post at my New Covenant blog, Princeton bioethicist Robert George, in his article Obama’s Abortion Extremism, stated,

That post, and the follow-up A Comprehensive argument against Barack Obama, were intended to expose Obama’s truly pro-abortion position, for any non-Christians that may have stumbled upon this site. Imagine my surprise when, the very week after I posted, I found myself in an argument with a Christian friend who adamantly considers Obama to have a distinctly pro-choice position.

I was astounded to hear my friend, a professor with probably close to 40 years in academia, make (what I consider) arguments typically promulgated by liberals and liberals within academia. Perhaps, in retrospect, given the fact that my friend has spent so much time within academia, regardless of whether or not it was secular academia, I should not have been surprised to hear liberal arguments.

Initially, I was informed that Obama was pro-choice and not pro-abortion. Upon my asking what the difference was I was given the argument that Obama is “personally opposed to abortion, but…”. I was about to offer the suggestion that one take that same personally opposed statement and substitute the word “slavery” or “rape” for “abortion”, and then see how absurd it sounds, but I was immediately informed that Obama has said he would sign on to a ban of partial birth abortions would they only offer an exception for cases of rape or incest. (note: Robert George’s article shreds such claims. More on that later.) I was then told that it was essentially not pro-life to allow a woman with an ectopic pregnancy to die rather than remove (abort) the “fetus”.

Do you see the problem with these arguments? They play with words (e.g., “personally opposed”). They use the exception as determiner of the rule (e.g., cases of rape or incest). They ignore the humanity of the unborn (e.g., referring to the unborn child as a “fetus”).

In further conversation with my friend, attempts were made to compare the devastation of the war in Iraq as not indicative of the Republicans truly having a pro-life position. Of course this is nothing more than diversion. Even if such a claim were true, how does that, I wonder, have anything to do with the devastating fact that 4,000 unborn children are aborted every day?

I was given this website to refer to as, supposedly, an objective basis for determining the position of Obama. I noted, to no response, that the website makes multiple references to Obama supporting a “woman’s right to choose”, yet never completes the statement (i.e., a woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn child).

I offered the article by Robert George, an article by Steve Wagner (Stand to Reason), as well as the National Right to Life Committee’s recent interaction with Barack Obama, as information outlets to help one understand Obama’s actions with regards to the abortion issue. Unfortunately, my friend considers third-party sources to be hopelessly biased and, as a result, would not even reference my recommendations, preferring to simply listen to what each candidate states themselves.

Are there other Christians who have turned a blind eye to the actions of Barack Obama with regards to the abortion issue? Are there other Christians who don’t view the issue of abortion as a major concern?

Greg Koukl, in his Oct. 20th weekly radio show, recently stated (28:30 into the program),

It seems to me, based on what Robert George has written, the lesson is this: If you are radically pro-choice, Obama is your man. But, if you think that abortion in all its forms, the garden variety of abortion, plus partial birth abortion, plus large scale production and destruction of embryos for embryonic stem cell research, plus allowing babies who survive abortion to die, plus having the government pay for all of this with your tax dollars – If you think this is wrong, because of the wanton destruction of defenseless human life. Then it seems to me you better invest your vote elsewhere. And if you believe God cares about these things, I don’t know how you can vote for Obama, and then stand before God and say, “I made the good, right, moral choice…”

If you are not aware of the candidate Barack Obama’s actions, with regards to abortion, I invite you to take a look at the data presented by Robert P. George, and see how it squares up with the statements made by the candidate Obama. It should be (painfully) clear that Obama is no friend of the unborn.

Note: I’ve updated this post to more accurately reflect the context of Obama’s statement regarding his two daughters.

A rundown, at HotAir, of candidate Barack Obama’s positions and history on abortion, taxes, radical associations, foreign policy judgment, disdain for the heartland, use of the race card, and lack of accomplishments.

Of particular concern, and what I would argue is evidence of the consequences of our country having state-sponsored killing of over 40 million unborn children, since Roe v. Wade, is this video snippet. This candidate, my friends, is someone who would consider his own grandchildren to be a punishment upon his daughters if they had the unfortunate luck to have been conceived while his daughters were still teenagers.

When we don’t view the unborn child as a human being, then it’s not so difficult to see it as a “punishment”.

Unfortunately, I think too many Americans are buying in to the rhetoric that Obama dishes out, with regards to his views on abortion. They consider him to be “pro-choice”, rather than “pro-abortion” (after all, so they say, who in their right mind would call him pro-abortion?). They trump the argument that we cannot legislate morality (to which I argue that virtually every law we have is a legislation of morality). They trump the supposed fact that Obama would sign on to abortion restriction laws were they to include an exception for the life of the mother (to which I wonder why they ignore the FACT that abortion is legal throughout the entire 9 month term of the baby?). They trump the comparison of the thousands of dead, due to the war in Iraq, and ask how moral that decision was (to which I ask, if they want to do some comparisons, how do those thousands compare to the 40+ million abortions since 1973?).

Can anyone be called pro-abortion? What if:

• someone would consider his own grandchildren, still in the womb, to be a punishment on his daughters?
• someone would, as his first act as President, sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would “abolish bans on partial-birth abortion and parental notification laws nationwide while implementing tax-payer funded abortions” (quote via HotAir)?
• someone condemned the Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial birth abortions?
• someone considered that caring for an infant born alive, after an abortion, to be an undue burden on the original decision of the doctor, and mother of the child?
• someone stated, on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, that “Throughout my career, I’ve been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.”?
• someone who, although he claims to be pro-choice, would strip funding from pro-life pregnancy crisis centers?

Yes, I’d call someone like that pro-abortion.

Rod Dreher thinks that conservatives who think that McCain won the latest debate are all wrong. He trumps polls which show Obama as the victor and he links to John Podhoretz as support. Podhoretz states,

The general feeling on the right side of the blogosphere is that this was McCain’s best debate and he did himself a lot of good. I think people on the Right were so relieved that the debate finally turned to matters of ideological and partisan moment — abortion, ACORN, Ayers, trade, spending — that, perhaps for the first time in his political career, they graded him on a curve. The problem, in my view, is that the shorthand in which McCain spoke about these matters made them comprehensible only to those of us who are already schooled in them. In almost every case, Obama answered McCain’s shorthand with longhand — with detailed, even long-winded answers that gave the distinct impression he was more in command of the details of these charges than the man who was trying to go after him on them.

We’re not the audience for these debates. Undecided voters are, and undecided voters are, or so studies tell us, often astonishingly ill-informed. You can only bring up new issues if you’re able pithily to explain the context and meaning of them. It is not a rap on McCain to say he’s not good at it; he doesn’t want to bother with the introduction. But in a setting like that, the introduction is what matters, far more than the attack.

I think there’s something inherently wrong with Podhoretz’ reasoning, though.

Consider the… undecided voter. I think there are both informed and ill-informed undecided voters. I know of people who have not decided who they will vote for precisely because they are aware (informed) of both McCain’s and Obama’s positions. They’re frustrated with the choices (or lack thereof) before them, and their frustration manifests itself in the form of indecision.

Now, consider the astonishingly ill-informed undecided voters. If such people are so astonishingly ill-informed, then such people have not put forth the effort to follow the candidates, and their positions. Thus, if such people have not taken the effort to become informed, up to this point in the campaign, then why should we expect that they will park themselves in front of a television and watch a 90 minute debate? Furthermore, if such people can only respond to pithily explained positions, then long-winded answers will be lost on them. Hence, such people will only respond to short campaign ads, the likes of which we will undoubtedly see in the next 2 1/2 weeks.

A recent commenter to my Comparing Alaska and New York City; Does size matter? post has taken issue with my extended comparison of infrastructure requirements between Illinois and Alaska, and how such requirements relate to experience in one who governs Alaska vs. in one who is a US senator for the state of Illinois.

Ansley stated,

…There’s not even 700,000 people in Alaska. The mayor of New York City has big fish to fry, my friend….each city has its own unique challenges, but the fact is, the more people you have in an area, the trickier things become.

My first reaction would be to wonder whether or not the critic has been to Alaska and seen, firsthand, how they deal with the logistics of managing such massive sea and air travel, in such extreme locations and weather conditions? Winter conditions that shut down most US airports are simply business as usual in Alaska. While working in Valdez, I was sent home only once, due to weather (and that was because the snowstorm had been dropping snow at the rate of 1 foot per hour for more about 4 hours). It’s not unusual for a typical Valdez snowstorm to drop 4 feet of snow. Once, when landing in Anchorage, the pilot informed us that the current temp was 0 degrees F. He also noted that the current ambient temp in Fairbanks, where the plane was headed, was -43 F. Did you catch that? It’s -43 F, yet they’re going to land and disembark because… it’s business as usual.

Simply put, you don’t manage that type of infrastructure, in that kind of weather, over that expanse of territory, unless you know exactly what you are doing.

But, to address the nonsensical population argument, let’s take a nonsensical look at it in terms of how it supposedly applies to the running of various countries, states, or cities. First, let’s use the following population values, from Wikipedia:

• US = 305,312,000
• China (PRC) = 1,321,851,888
• India = 1,132,446,000
• Russia = 142,008,838
• Canada = 33,390,000
• California = 36,553,215
• Illinois = 12,852,548
• NYC = 8,274,527
• Alaska = 677,000
• Illinois(2) = 642,627

Using the Deepak Chopra / Ansley argument, it appears that running the US is roughly 1/4 the job of running China or India (I’ll give you 4 US presidents for your 1 Chinese premier – and I’ll throw in an extra president for half a dozen Chinese gymnasts). Yet, we see that running the US is about 2 times the job of running Russia (that must explain why Putin has the time to go tiger hunting!), 9 times greater than running Canada (yet another reason for our friends up north to hate us), 8 times greater than California (so former / current actors shouldn’t have a problem running Cal-ee-for-nee-uh?), 24 times greater than Illinois, 37 times that of NYC, and a whopping 451 times more complex than running Alaska!

Case closed? End of story?

Not so fast, census breath.

Isn’t the point here to compare experience levels with regards to being in charge of – as in – managing and running something (i.e., executive experience)? While Palin is actually running Alaska, Senator (did you catch that? – “Senator”) Obama is not running Illinois. In fact, he is only one of two senators, along with around 18 congressmen. Surely we can’t take Illinois’ total population of 12.8 million when comparing Obama’s responsibilities with that of Palin’s, can we? So, let’s do an Obamadjustment to the population of Illinois. First off, since he’s one of two senators, we need to cut the 12.8 million in half, to 6.4 million. And, since he shares responsibility with all those congressmen, let’s half the 6.4 to 3.2 million. Finally, since Obama isn’t really running the state (that’s left for the… ahem, governor), let’s take only, say, 20% of the 3.2 million. Now we’re left with an adjusted population (Illinois(2)) of 642,627 that we could reasonably attribute to Obama’s non-executive responsibilities.

Well, using our adjusted number, we see that running the US is 475 times greater than Obama’s current non-executive role. That puts him behind the governor of Alaska, in terms of population comparisons.

The thing is, Obama isn’t running for VP.

So, Sarah Palin is taking some heat for not answering Katie Couric’s question regarding which Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with.

Well, I suppose she could have stated that answering that question, with any degree of specificity, is above her pay grade.

But, then again, she’s not running for president.

About 25 years ago I owned a dog that, as time marched on, began experiencing the effects of aging. The dog, a Sheltie, got to the point where her walking was labored, resulting in muscle spasms. Consequently, we began discussing taking her in to the vet to be put down. My grandmother, bless her heart, objected to that course of action. Her reason?

We quietly chuckled at the absurdity of her concerns.

Now (HT: Doug) enter a British medical ethics “expert” who has recommended that people be

How is it that we’ve gone from the age-old notion of putting animals down, to that of putting humans down? Are we beginning to see a clear juxtaposition between the Judeo-Christian view of The Imago Dei, and that of naturalism, which sees us as nothing more than clothed apes?

From NASA warming scientist: ‘This is the last chance’ to Hot Climate could Shut Down Plate Tectonics, what is one to think about our impending doom from Global Warming?

In the web-radio interview Toward a Sensible Approach to Global Warming, the scholars at Reasons to Believe interviewed environmental scientist Kevin Birdwell.

The interview was well done, with no rash statements made on either side of the issue. Birdwell presented the current state of knowledge, on environmental science, noting that global warming does occur. He also noted that, due to the incredibly complex nature of the topic, we are not yet able to determine to what extent human induced warming affects the environment. Birdwell also stated that simply reducing carbon emissions will not necessarily impact global warming since all particulants emitted, natural and man-made, play a role in “global warming.”

It was good to see Reasons to Believe finally address this issue, which has polarized many within the evangelical community.