John McCain, after congratulating Barack Obama for his historic nomination, appears to have chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his pick for VP. (see CNN, FoxNews)

Palin, the Barracuda.

CHANGE… we can believe in.

In an essentially 50/50 race, this is an awesome, gutsy, risky, and potentially brilliant move. Can we say… Maverick?

Kind of makes you wonder what Hillary is thinking now, doesn’t it?

(image: McNamee/Getty)

The Catholic church has had to correct the thinking of some Democrats in the past in reference to the church’s position on abortion.  (Well, they’ve spoken out in the past; there’s no evidence yet that the actual thinking was corrected.)  Most recently, the Speaker of the House herself has come under fire for misrepresenting Church teaching in order to buttress her own views.

Politics can be treacherous. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked on even riskier ground in a recent TV interview when she attempted a theological defense of her support for abortion rights.

Roman Catholic bishops consider her arguments on St. Augustine and free will so far out of line with church teaching that they have issued a steady stream of statements to correct her.

The latest came Wednesday from Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who said Pelosi, D-Calif., “stepped out of her political role and completely misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion.”

It has been a harsh week of rebuke for the Democratic congresswoman, a Catholic school graduate who repeatedly has expressed pride in and love for her religious heritage.

Enough “pride” and “love” for her to, y’know, accept her Church’s teaching?  Apparently not.  The “steady stream” of corrections don’t seem to do much.  More below the fold…

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• What Joe Carter has been up to.
• The point every liberal misses (iit seems), “Republicans have as much sympathy for people who are sick, poor or troubled as anyone does. Where Republicans and Democrats differ is in their opinions about how best to help such people. Democrats tend to believe in direct government action as a remedy. Republicans tend to believe that government is often part of the problem, and that better remedies are available …”. Amen. [emphasis mine]
• Ayers. Again.
• Why venerate the Mary as Theotokos? A short answer.
• Contra the inner video/dialog.
• Google and geo-thermal energy.

In pictures taken or made by both adoring fans and by the press, Barack Obama keeps getting the heavenly, messianic treatment.  Check out this blog that highlights all sorts of examples.  And see here for a few others.  Covering enthusiasm is one thing; framing the shot it another.

But it looks like the guy’s starting to cater to this feeling by giving his acceptance speech in a mock-up of a Greek temple. 

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.

The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos’ National Football League team plays.

Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president.

He will stride out to a raised platform to a podium that can be raised from beneath the floor.

The show should provide a striking image for the millions of Americans watching on television as Obama delivers a speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination.

(Click here for a picture.)

The keyword here is “image”.  Granted, both parties manage the image of their candidates; perception is too often reality for many folks and the parties play to this.  But this is simply way over the top, and McCain’s ad about Obama’s celebrity starts to ring truer and truer.  The whole Adonis imagery he’s playing to is indicative of a guy who is drunk on his own Kool-Aid.

After this, you can’t say that messianic imagery is simply foist upon Mr. Obama by his fans.  He’s participating in it and encouraging it.  And now we know why he chose Invesco Field; the convention center was too small for his head.

• A point for the Christian well taken.
• Kevin Edgecomb pointed to me to this post regarding the Georgia/Russia situation, which is well worth reading.
• A new very very big number.
• The Incredibles in part was a statement against the cult of mediocrity … which is not just a conservative fantasy. It is a thing which should be fought.
• An interesting experiment and question posed, which is more important the sense of safety or actual safety.
• Diseases returning and why.

A sanity check by both parties in the US is desperately needed. Look, I have no love lost for Mr Obama. I think as a President, if elected he will turn out to marginally worse than Jimmy Carter’s 4 year term. He’ll push for a number of programs, continue centralizing healthcare and attempting as much as he might in expanding various entitlements programs a number of fronts. McCain similarly will push for (and against a likely Democratically controlled Congress get somewhat less of what he desires) a different set of programs. But, no Mr Coates is completely loony when he offers that a McCain Presidency is to be equivalent to “sell the freedom of their daughters …” or that for the poor, a McCain Presidency implies … “the outcome will be sickness and death and homelessness and, for those cut off from health coverage and help …”

Look, Presidents have a lot less domestic influence than we pretend. Mr Bush has been in the office for 8 years and gosh, our daughters aren’t slaves and the lot of the poor is not that appreciably different than a decade ago.

But over the top rhetoric and outright demonization of the other side is just unhelpful all around.

Try some sanity on for size. It might help.

• Stating the obvious,  on parents and choices.
• The prayer offered at the DNC convention, and a prayer once offered by Neitzsche.
• Christians were not the only Romans standing against abortion.
• Pelosi is getting it for her very non-Catholic views on abortion, Noted here too.
• Solzhenitsyn and modern Russia.
• A DNC delegate? Big tent indeed.
• Zooom.

In the wake of the Georgia/Russia/South Ossetian kerfuffle I’d like to consider the implications of expansion as policy for a country. The invasion and counter-invasion (which was mostly missed by me due to my disconnect with the Internet and news sources over the last two weeks), is something I’m not qualified yet to comment. I’m still reading up about, one source here.

However, in the abstract, especially in the wake of recent military adventures and the as well the Kosovo and Ossetian moves toward independence, one might consider when and if national expansion is justifiable. Certain elements of the left as well as the pacifistic supporters are of the opinion that attacking or anything but “defensive” wars are inexcusable in all circumstances. This belies the fact that every nation that exists, owes its very existance to a past non-defensive war. The motions of peoples in the antiquity, clans settling and moving were all accompanied by violence. If only defensive wars are justified, how are those wars justifiable if indeed the place being defended was initially acquired in a way which is a priori unjust, that is if aggressive conflict is assumed unjust.

Now, I’m well aware the “everyone does it” isn’t a moral justification. In ethics, there is rarely a cut and dried simplistic path to the good. There are instead tensions, or a weighting that must be done. One must evaluate the good and other less salutary aspects to find a solution which maximizes the good. Similarly in political conflict there are times when war (even wars of aggression) are viewed by those evaulating the possibilities as the best possibility. For a people the option of expressing their independence can be seen as one which justifies much. Manifest destiny drove expansion of the US states from a small colony on the East coast across the continent to the other sea. Expansion did not always occur peacefully (and it is naive to expect that an expanding industrializing civilization can abide peacefully in contact with a nomadic tribal one).

Roman expansion in part was driven by economic goals and gains as well as a notion that Roman civilizing influences were in the best interest of the conquered nation. Glen Cook, in a fantasy novel which I read in my (mispent?) youth, had a character remark to another that “no villain sees himself as evil”. That is the villain of the piece is acting for and on the behalf of what he perceives as good. And that fact is something which is wise to recall.

Mr Putin as well as almost all or leaders are honestly doing what they feel is “right” and in the best interests of their people. While is easier to assume your personal take on the world is “righteous” and those with whom you disagree are in the wrong, most of the time the “other” guy, even those with a wildly different idea of what is right to do, has performed the same sort of reasoning, but with a different set of starting assumptions and “weighting” of values and also things he’s right and doing good. That makes the world a little more complicated, but at the same time is a more realistic view of the way things are.

Poverty, as Glenn Beck notes, is an issue that unites us all, at least on the surface.  It’s not a political condition, he says; it’s a human condition. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly a third of the residents in those cities [Detroit, Michigan and Buffalo, New York] are living beneath the poverty line, the highest rates among large cities in the entire country.

No matter what side of the political aisle you’re on, that is nothing short of appalling. Yet if you ask people what we should do about it, you’ll probably hear answers that inexplicably break down right along party lines.

Indeed.  Instead, we should see what works and do it.  Additionally, we should see what doesn’t work and stop doing it.  I mean, if providing the same solution for decades hasn’t helped, it’s time for a radically different answer. 

But as Glenn observes, there are some places that will stick with their solution through thick and thin (and failure).

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I was talking with an old buddy of mine about a political topic last night (whether allowing China to keep its MFN trade status with us has helped or hurt Chinese Christians) when he told me that didn’t care one way or the other how our government interacted with their government (I’m paraphrasing) because God is bigger than any government and that He will work His will in that country regardless.

I was a little disconcerted about this, since I believe that we can and do have a part to play in the world as Christians, including the political sphere. My friend then got a little more specific. For him, politics was just not something he was gifted or interested in. He had relatives who were very politically inclined, and he’d had a number of conversations with them where they suggested that he needed to be more informed and involved. His point to me was this: There are those who are interested and gifted regarding politics just like any other ability (encouragement, teaching, etc.). For those that are gifted (and all these gifts come from God), they should get involved and active. It would be a misuse of their talents not to. For he and others who are not gifted in this area, it would be a waste of time to try to fit in where God had not intended them to.

I suggested that perhaps saying that everyone should follow politics is like saying that everyone should be a missionary. As high a calling as missionary might be, if God’s not made you for that, there is an even higher calling that He has you for. (Perhaps, policy wonk?)

We were at the church working with a professional sound technician who was helping us get more out of the system we have, so our conversation was done at that point as we got back into that subject. That was last night, and I’ve had some more time to consider that conversation today. Here are some additional thoughts I’ve had.

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For the past few weeks, the political press has been waiting breathlessly for the most anticipated announcement of the 2008 Election campaign: the vice-presidential nominations. But does the actual nomination matter as much as the media would have us believe? Does the actual nomination have any real influence on the vote?

Pundits will tell you that by selecting a particular candidate will all but guarantee delivery of a swing state for the ticket. Others will tell you that a VP nominee’s experience will “balance the ticket” or counterbalance the presidential candidate’s weaknesses by bringing expertise in a given area such as foreign policy or economic issues.

Personally, I don’t believe a bit of it. In selecting a VP nominee, a candidate really only needs to think about one thing (besides the obvious question of whether their selection could step into the role of President under a worst-case scenario).

The main thing that the presidential candidate needs to guard against is destroying their chances at getting elected by making a lousy vice-presidential choice.

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In California, the First Amendment is subordinate to the whims of the judges.  The Associated Press reports:

California’s highest court on Monday barred doctors from invoking their religious beliefs as a reason to deny treatment to gays and lesbians, ruling that state law prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination extends to the medical profession.

What "treatment" was denied?  How was care withheld, as the AP headline claims?

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state’s law, which "imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations."

In the lawsuit that led to the ruling, Guadalupe Benitez, 36, of Oceanside said that the doctors treated her with fertility drugs and instructed her how to inseminate herself at home but told her their beliefs prevented them from inseminating her. One of the doctors referred her to another fertility specialist without moral objections, and Benitez has since given birth to three children.

Nevertheless, Benitez in 2001 sued the Vista-based North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group. She and her lawyers successfully argued that a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation applies to doctors.

So what we’re really talking about here is an elective procedure, not "care" nor "treatment" of some condition.  And the doctors did everything up to the point where their religious convictions wouldn’t let them continue.  Even then, they instructed Benitez how to do it herself. 

A detail you won’t find here but is brought up in the WorldNetDaily coverage, the case was dismissed when it was originally brought, but liberal Californians can be certain that, no matter the obstacles, their Supreme Court can be counted on to come through. 

But don’t doctors have constitutional rights, too?  Well the California Medial Association used to think so, but they changed their tune "after receiving a barrage of criticism from the gay-rights community."  We have the bullying tactics of the "tolerant" Left connect with the political correctness of the medical community, with the result being a trampling of the Constitution. 

This is what passes for the imprudent "jurisprudence" we find on the Left Coast.  This almost calls for a Constitutional amendment, except we already have one and it doesn’t seem to be working. 

[tags]California Supreme Court,Constitution,homosexuality,First Amendment,religious rights,Douglas Fenton,Christine Brody,Guadalupe Benitez[/tags]

If Barack Obama can only answer the question,

“At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

with,

“Answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade,”

Then he is declaring at least two things:

1. he does not have the ability, knowledge, or wherewithal to determine the answer, and
2. he is incapable of understanding any answer that he may eventually determine, or be educated on

That he is incapable of determining any answer stems from the fact that the question Rick Warren posed was improperly qualified with a subjective “in your view” loophole. Such a loophole opened the door for a subjective, “I’m personally opposed to abortion…”, rhetoric. Yet, despite the loophole, Obama could do no better than give a non-answer, thereby displaying either supreme ignorance, or supreme deceit.

Mr. Obama, if you cannot determine, even within the vagueness of an “in your view” opinion context, when a baby gets human rights, how can you justify supporting an abortion-friendly policy which could very well, and indeed does, violate the human rights of “babies” across this country? Wouldn’t the mere fact that you proclaim ignorance on the issue mandate that you take the safer stance of protecting the rights of the unborn?

Yes, Mr. Obama, the answer to that question is way above your pay grade, as is the office of President of the United States. You, sir, are either an ignorant fool, or a self-serving, platitude preaching, substance devoid politician, attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of many an American citizen.

Don’t know how it got there, but this song was going through my mind this weekend, so I thought I’d plant it in yours as well.  :)  Video’s OK, but it’s the music that I’m really passing along.

In the continuing study of John 15, we came to verse 2 today.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Among the points, noting that God the Father does make the tough calls and cuts off those branches not producing and pruning those that do, is the question of what is spiritual fruit? 

First, fruit is Christ-like character, and here we see a parallel with Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians.  And later on in John 15, Jesus talks about how one of these fruits comes about.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Our joy is complete when we follow Jesus’ example of following his commands.

Secondly, fruit is answers to prayer.  Again, John 15 points to this.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Thirdly, fruit is soul-winning.  Earlier in John, chapter 4, Jesus describes what doing his Father’s work entails; bring other to know Him.

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."

We don’t all perform the same task each time; sometimes planting the seed, sometimes watering it, sometimes reaping the harvest.  But we should be laborers with Christ as part of the fruit He wants to see in us. 

The gardener’s cutting and pruning are done because he wants a return on his investment, and because he wants the branches to flourish.  That is what God the Father wants from us; flourishing.  His correction is meant to bring that about.

[tags]sermon notes,Gospel of John,Christianity,fruit of the Spirit[/tags]