Why Politics Matter

I sat in the theater Wednesday weeping and hoping no one would notice.

The Victory Theater is a part of the National World War II Museum just off St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, and I had taken my grandson who was out of school the week after New Year’s. The “movie,” I suppose we can call it that, was called “Beyond All Boundaries,” and showed how this war was conducted, how it affected everyone, how it changed everything.

I forget how many millions of lives were ended as a result of that war. The number is astronomical but gets into the stratosphere when we add the millions exterminated in Hitler’s concentration camps.

What hit me–and this was never an actual part of the story on the huge curved screens–was that much of the cause for the war was a failure in the politics of past years.

In saying that, I do not discount the sheer-genius and near-insanity of Adolf Hitler. No amount of diplomacy could have prevented him from doing what he did. He seemed to have understood only the language of brute force.

That said, it’s still true however that the greater war was a failure of the politics of the previous generation. And that’s what needs to be gotten across to our younger generation today.

Young people are bored with politics. Heads of states meet and deliberate and issue dull news releases. Embassies close down, secretaries of state exchange documents, summits are held, the television covers it all and newspapers blare it in their headlines. The football game is more interesting, so we turn to another channel.

Politics is (are?) mind-deadening to the vast majority of our people. Especially the young. And therein lies the problem.

Continue reading

I Peter 1:1-2 Who We Are

(Note: In the past, my Scripture notes on this blog have tied in with the particular book of the Bible which our denomination has selected to emphasize that winter. However, in recent weeks, I’ve been so blessed by reading the epistles of First and Second Peter, I’ve decided to focus on them for a time. As any pastor can tell you, I do this more for my own benefit and edification. If, however, readers find a use for these notes, you’re certainly welcome to use them any way you please. No permission required.)

The First Epistle of Peter begins with an interesting juxtaposition of two unusual expressions:

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world….”

Think of that: you are the elect of God; you are strangers in this world.

Then, as if to underscore this paradox, the apostle continues:

“…scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen….”

You are dispersed and scattered, but you are chosen.

Honored royally by God, treated disdainfully by the world. That’s almost always been the case with the Lord’s faithful. It is today in many places throughout the world.

So, we are the elect? Is that what you are telling us, Peter?

Yes, but be careful here. People have gone to town on this concept and never been seen again. They have used it as a springboard into the stratosphere and are still sailing out through the wild blue yonder, no longer being grounded in reality or the clear teachings of Scripture.

Let’s not make Scripture say what it doesn’t say.

Continue reading

The Goody

I write in books. I mark up the stories and circle the insights I want to be able to find later. I argue in the margins and sometimes warn future readers away in the front.

The books I write in most are the ones I plan to keep for future reference. “Know Doubt” by John Ortberg is one of those. The subtitle is: “The Importance of Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith.”

It’s a mother lode of great quotes and insights.

Ortberg, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Menlo Park, California, is turning out best-sellers at a Max Lucado pace. The first one I read was “If You Want to Walk on the Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat,” and I’ve recommended it far and wide ever since. (In fact, I seem to remember that the Dean of the Graduate Faculty at our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at the time, Perry Hancock, gave me that book. He’d used it in some of his classes, I think.)

Anyone who gives you a book by what turns out to be a favorite author has done you a great favor.

Growing up on the farm, the nuts and fruit we ate came from our trees and not from Sam’s Club or a grocery store. The best nuts on our farm were black walnut, partly, I suspect, because the “goody” was so hard to get at.

Black walnuts are mostly wood. The shell is hard and thick and must be broken with a hammer. The payoff–what we kids called the goody–was small, but delicious.

I’m not suggesting you skip purchasing Ortberg’s “Know Doubt” by telling you some of the “goodies” in it, but rather hoping to whet your appetite for the whole thing.

What follows are some of what I marked in his book….

1. “Every child is a testimony to God’s desire that the world go on. Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who doubts sometimes, has written that the reason so many babies keep being born is that God loves stories.” (p. 18)

Continue reading

Aw, C’Mon, Man!

ESPN Sports Network has a feature on their shows they call “C’Mon, Man!” They run clips of football players in the middle of games doing things that make absolutely no sense and are detrimental to their team. Sometimes it’s the coach making the foolish decision–like facing fourth-down-and-four and “going for it” on their own 30 yard line when they are ahead in the score and the clock is winding down–and once in a while it’s a fan pulling the bone-head play.

“C’mon, man” is something of a combination groan, “duh!” (remember those?), and “are you kidding me?”

A dad in Lacombe, Louisiana, did something truly foolish earlier this week and is paying for it dearly. (Note: I do not know the guy and have removed his name. This is all from the December 31, 2009, issue of the Times-Picayune.)

The man had driven to the Texas line to pick up his 12-year-old daughter and bring her home. Along the way–they were on Interstate 12 just east of Baton Rouge, not more than 50 miles from home–dad and daughter decided they would play a trick on the other motorists.

What they did was to duct-tape the daughter’s mouth and hands and make it look like he was kidnaping her.

Well, they succeeded. That’s exactly what the other motorists thought when they called 911 to report them. Then, while waiting for the Louisiana Highway Patrol to arrive, other motorists boxed in their pickup truck so they could not get away.

“It’s just a joke,” the dad and his daughter protested.

The police did not laugh. And neither did the judge who set his bail at $3,000. The dad was charged with criminal mischief and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The daughter was charged too and released into the custody of an uncle.

Now you know why mothers don’t want to let the kids go off with dad.

The rest of the world would like to shake this father and say, “C’mon, man! What were you thinking? Even if your daughter was bored, all 12-year-old girls are bored! And even if she suggested doing this, you are supposed to be the adult in this relationship! You are the one who thinks about consequences. It’s up to the adult to say, ‘I don’t think so, honey. Why, what if (such-and-such) happened?'”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about people in the Lord’s work who provoke a “c’mon, man!” reaction from the rest of us.

Continue reading