Simply put, some choices are a matter of simple preference, or taste, and some choices need more careful consideration.  My issue with weight control means that I cannot make my dining selection based on what I prefer, but rather I must make them based on what can allow me to sustain my weight both physically and psychologically.  Thus while I would greatly prefer an almost immeasurable array of things to one of those boxes for my evening meal, its ease of preparation (keeping me out of the kitchen which always leads to snacking) and controlled portions (meaning I can eat everything I see and not have overeaten in the process) makes it the meal of choice for me.

The Wall Street Journal recently wrote on the impending IPO of Facebook and carried on at great length about the marketing value of the “Like” button.  “Like” at Facebook is a simple thing – it is a statement of preference.  Increasingly the force of marketing tempts us to invest in our preferences rather than in what reason and circumstances say we should.  How many people are overextended on credit cards, not because they are out of work and used them to get by, but because they simply overbought?

Don’t get me wrong, following your taste or preference is harmless within certain constraints.  It’s a great way to decide what to watch on TV tonight, provided your tastes do not run to the obscene – in which case you have with television the same kind of issues I have with food.   But there are some decisions that simply demand we set our preferences aside, or at least deeply subordinate them, in favor of our reason and a sober assessment of circumstances.

Buying a house would be one example.  Before I can even begin to concern myself with things like style and floor plan, I must seriously look at costs and financing.  Once I have determined the price I can afford then I can use matters of taste to differentiate amongst the available houses in that range.  If my “dream house” costs more than I can afford it must stay a dream.

This same principle holds when it comes to our political decisions.  I was deeply struck a few days ago by a NRO piece by Wesley J. Smith:

When Pliny the Younger was a provincial governor in the Roman Empire, he wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan asking whether he should execute Christians who refused to burn incense in worship of the emperor. Pliny, in keeping with the customs of the empire, did not care about forcing Christians to believe that the emperor was a god. But in public they had to behave as if they did. Thus, the Christians were in the dock not so much because of their faith in a risen Christ as over their willful refusal to declare themselves part of the reigning social order.

I thought of Pliny when I read that the Obama administration, in creating specific rules to implement Obamacare, will require all employers (with a very narrow exemption discussed below) to offer their employees health insurance that provides FDA-approved contraception, female sterilization, and other “reproductive” services free of charge — even if the employer is a religious organization and doing so violates its doctrine. I also recalled the times that President Obama and other members of his administration have supported “freedom of worship.” However, as in Pliny’s time, “freedom of worship” is not the same thing as “freedom of religion.” The former means that one may believe whatever one wants and worship privately without interference, whereas the latter allows one freedom to live in the world at large consistent with one’s faith tenets, even if they are not endorsed by the state.

That distinction between religion and worship is an extraordinary observation.  Smith goes on about its political consequences and Roman Catholic concerns, but it is deeper than that still.  It is particularly pertinent to Evangelicals, and even Protestant Christianity generally.  Within these circles there is something called the “Worship Wars.”  Google the term and you will be amazed how much discussion there is about it.  Essentially the battle is between organ music dominant liturgical forms of worship and “modern” guitar music dominated “freer” forms of worship.  Much of the fight centers on matters of taste in music and other forms of religious expression.  But in the fight people often neglect that there are consequences that go far beyond simple matters of taste.

One of the outfalls of this “inside baseball” battle has been that many, many people have come to confuse “worship” with Church.  This is something I could go on about until well past the time your interest waned completely, but let’s focus on the fact that this confusion has deep political consequences.  Smith’s piece looks at some of the consequences on a policy level, but I want to examine it on a retail politics level.  Obama is flat out betting on the fact that most people are stuck in this confusion and cannot tell the difference between worship and religion – or more directly they simply think worship IS religion.

How else could Obama allow the abysmal ruling vis-a-vie forcing Catholic institutions to provide insurance that provides for medical services antithetical to church teaching and come out just a few days later and at the National Prayer Breakfast sound just like a preacher?  There are many, many theological, policy and hermeneutical nits to pick with the president’s prayer breakfast speech, but I just want to focus on the incredible chutzpah  (to borrow a term from yet another religious group) of such seemingly diametrically opposed actions.

But for those actions to be diametrically opposed, religion has to be a matter of more than taste.  Yet as the “worship wars” indicate, for thousands and thousands of Americans religion is little more than a matter of taste.

When I started thinking about this whole “taste and thought” thing I was going to write about it in response to all the people I have heard on talk radio and elsewhere in the last several weeks talking about how Gingrich resonated with them and expressed their feelings (a matter more or less of taste) and they simply did not care about the reality of the politics on the ground (a matter of thought.)  That still applies, but this has turned into something much more important.

I am deeply concerned that if people continue to view religion primarily as a matter of taste we are lost.  There are undoubtedly some that will tell me I am part of the problem having insisted these many years that Mormons deserve a place at the table.  Read Smith -  once we understand the difference between religion and worship then we can begin to truly understand what freedom of religion really is  and come to understand its necessity for the operation of our nation.

It is time for those of us of faith to engage our brains and subordinate our taste to our reason.  There is simply too much at stake.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Essentially, the Mormon issue has shown local appeal, but is not playing generally – and might even be backfiring with moderates and independents.  Gingrich misplayed it in Florida and got trounced.  Santorum’s surrogates played it and he had no traction at all.  (Note to Santorum – lose this guy and lose him publicly.  The plausible deniability is spent.)  Iowa was a virtual tie and the Evangelical vote split in Florida.  You can bet your bottom dollar the “not Romney” votes from there will either go Romney or stay home in the general – they will not go Obama.

People may indeed think Mormonism “weird,” but in a world where we are all a little weird, we don’t like being attacked for it.  Tone matters too.  Romney payed hardball in Florida but Gingrich was just flat out nasty.  A “vitriolic” and “spiteful” Obama might not be a good idea.

Which brings me to the Obama administration’s latest swipe at folks of faith:

The Obama Administration is standing by a decision to require all insurance plans to cover the use of contraceptives, but said Friday it would give some employers an additional year to comply.

The rule, which goes into effect August 1, 2012, requires all insurance plans to cover the cost of birth control. Many non-profits with religious affiliations, such as Catholic universities and hospitals, say that will force them to violate their basic tenets.

The Department of Health and Services announced Friday those employers would have until August 1, 2013, to meet the new requirement.

The push back from the Catholic church has been enormous – you can read about here, here and here.  Politically, this is a very shrewd move on Obama’s part, even if it is onerous.  The policy is based on his conviction that “most Americans” think the religious prohibitions against contraception and abortion are “weird.”  But as things are shaping up, that conclusion has to be called into question.  By making an announcement, any announcement, he has pushed the issue to the fore so he can test the waters before the general.  By making THIS announcement he has 1) appealed to his base by keeping the policy in place, 2) appealed to moderates with the “reasonable” delay, and 3) really punted the issue into the next administration – hoping inertia, or his victory in November, will prevent it from being changed.

Unfortunately, this is policy, not simply an effort to shape public perception of someone in an election cycle.  This matters.

And It Provides Mitt Romney With An Opportunity

Tuesday our friend Timothy Dalrymple suggested some “course corrections” to Governor Romney.  Given what an effective spokesperson against a religion test Dalrymple has been this cycle, Team Romney would do well to listen.

Point #1: It’s never, never “all about the economy.”

[...]

Point #2: Don’t give up on evangelicals. Some very public evangelicals have very publicly denounced you and your faith.  Your cherished religious community, the community in which you were raised by loving parents, in which you’ve raised your own children, the same community that you have served so tirelessly over decades, was slandered as a “cult” by an influential pastor.  You, ergo, were portrayed as a cult member.  Many evangelical leaders defended this choice of wording, and few have spoken out even against the more obvious efflorescences of anti-Mormon bigotry.  To make matters worse, an entire generation of conservative evangelical activists/leaders gathered in Texas to rally around some candidate other than you.  So it would be perfectly understandable if you felt that you had little incentive — or no stomach — for further engagement with evangelicals.

[...]

Of those evangelicals who oppose you, few do so passionately, and most are compelled not by prejudice but by misinformation about your record and your positions.  In other words, many evangelicals support you now, and many more are willing to support you if they can be convinced that your stances on abortion, the family and religious liberties are sincere and impassioned, and not simply assumed for political convenience.

[...]

Point #3: Own your faith.

This may be the most important point of all.  Your discipline is the stuff of legend.  And after your father’s campaign for the presidency ran off the rails when he referred to a “brainwashing” on the Vietnam issue, the exercise of an extraordinarily meticulous self-control has become a pervasive theme in your family.  But these things are largely responsible for the “Romneybot” moniker.  Your behavior seems a little too programmed, too scripted, and therefore artificial.  It makes it hard for many people to connect with you.  And although Richard Land meant it in a different (and incorrect) sense, I believe he was inadvertently onto something when he said you’re “not Mormon enough” for many evangelicals.

You love God.  You strive to follow God’s leading in your life.  Although we would differ on the metaphysics of Christ’s nature, in practice your personal relationship with Jesus Christ looks an awful lot like the one that evangelicals enjoy.  These are not things that northeasterners typically wear on their sleeves, and your campaign is understandably reluctant to shine a spotlight on your Mormonism.  Evangelicals would grow more uncomfortable with you if they thought you were going to be making an argument on behalf of Mormonism throughout your presidency.  So you should not engage in apologetics.  But they will grow more comfortable with you if they see the depth, the vitality, and the heartfelt authenticity of your relationship with God.  They will grow more comfortable if they better understand your pastoral experience (let’s call it what it is) as ward bishop and stake president.  You have rich experiences in missions and preaching and pastoral counseling, and in all these ways you connected with ordinary people, ordinary workers, in the struggles of everyday life.

This ruling by the Obama administration gives Romney the perfect opportunity to follow this advise – simply by getting in front of the issue.  This ruling by the Obama administration could be the force that heals the rift inside the Republican coalition.  Mitt Romney in front of this issue accomplishes two very important things – it pulls social conservatives into camp Romney and in so doing it neutralizes “weird.”  If that happens, Obama will have no choice but to get shrill and Gingrich just showed us how that will go.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Amongst Evangelicals the line between a worship service and a good show can be a pretty thin one – I am sure such is the case in at least some corners of other faith expressions as well.  The difference between worship service and good show goes much deeper than simply style and ritual of the event.  I think the difference is more along the lines of who the event is about.  A worship service is about God.  A good show is about the audience.

If we truly worship God, then we acknowledge that He is our ruler and that therefore, he can “go to work on us,” if you will.  Now bear in mind, I am not talking about God ruling the nation – just the life and character of the individual.  If we are attending a good show then we are entertained, but changed? – Certainly not in any meaningful sense of the word.  When attending a good show, God serves us, we do not serve God.

As a person of faith, if you are looking for who to vote for, one of the things you should consider is whether the candidate in question views God as a ruler or a servant.

I will not attempt to make on judgement on this issue about anyone in the running, but I do think it is an important distinction and I think it helps describe some of the divides that we are seeing in the party.

Worship well this day.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Look; seeing Newt sock the MBM is always fun, but that’s not really what resonated the most with me, and I have to assume that at least some of the SC electorate think the way I do, since they are members of my very common demographic (female, white, 40+ y/o, some college, hunchbacked, three large teeth that don’t meet anywhere, likes pudding. Understandably. It’s frickin’ delicious! Also there’s the tooth situation).

For me, it was the part where he stood up for work. Where he discussed the essential virtues of work. Nobody does that anymore. It was refreshing. It was important to me to hear someone say it. To hear that someone has a f*cking clue what’s going on down here in Realityland. We are out of work and we want it.

This administration seems to think that Americans should view work as a vampire perceives holy water, and nearly every policy out of DC reflects that.

Well, we don’t think that way. We’re Americans. We want to work. Dammit, we’re ready to get back to it. Give us the reins to our own lives, stick your food stamps back in your ass where they came from, and get out of the way. You’re killing us.

This message resonates. That’s why Gingrich won. Not just the slap at ‘the elites,’ but the content of the slap. The part where all work is good work and no one should consider themselves demeaned by what is *good.* Yeah, that may have been pre-formulated, and Juan Williams walked right into it. So? It needed to be said. Most of us thoroughly enjoyed hearing it clearly and unambiguously elucidated.

Fair enough, but remember, Gingrich “stood up for work” in the context of Williams’ question about racism.  Gingrich was ringing the racism bell, without question when he “stood up for work.”  Not directly, of course, but in the context of that question in that environment – it was dog whistle time.

But that is not really the point I want to make in this post.  Rather I want to look at a couple of aspects that go to what this series has been all about – character.

For one thing, what is “work” and has Gingrich ever done it?  I am not saying Gingrich has not made an honest living, but has he worked?  Since leaving congress he has more-or-less been a professional fundraiser.  Oh, sure he “consulted” but have you seen the consulting contract?  He was paid to put his name on a letterhead.  Is that work?  He has established organizations that raise money to carry on for a cause, but what has he produced of value that other people are willing to pay a profitable price to obtain?  In all the stuff Newt Gingrich has done, what is his product?  Beyond Newt Gingrich being the product of Newt Gingrich, I’m not sure I can answer that question.  Is it work when your work consists of developing and promoting yourself?  That is a complex question to answer, more than we can deal with in a blog post like this, but this is worth thinking about:

Prov 21:23-26 – He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles.   “Proud,” “Haughty,” “Scoffer,” are his names, who acts with insolent pride.  The desire of the sluggard puts him to death, for his hands refuse to work; All day long he is craving, while the righteous gives and does not hold back. (NAS)

So, how to close these series of blog posts?  I think maybe with a short quotation of the Apostle John:

I Jn 3:18 – Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. (NAS)

Much has been said about how wonderful Newt Gingrich is at expressing the feelings and anger and desire for work that people feel.  Words are JUST words.  Feelings can change with the state of your digestion.  In the end it is not the words that matter.  Had Moses simply talked to Pharaoh, the Jews would still be in Egyptian captivity.   Had Jesus come and preached, but never been crucified nor resurrected,  we would not even know of Him, let alone call Him Lord.

Mitt Romney may not be seem to be as eloquent as Newt Gingrich.  Mitt Romney may not seem to connect with the emotions of the electorate as well as Newt Gingrich, but Mitt Romney’s actions in the campaign, as Governor of Massachusetts, as head of the Salt Lake City Olympics, and as a private business man are what matter.

Listen to Newt Gingrich – enjoy his words, revel in them.  But remember this is about who we want to govern the nation.  If words made a good president, then the president we have right now would be the best we have ever had.  Examine the records and lives of these two men.  On the one hand we have the twice-divorce, thrice-married, philandering, deeply prevaricating life-long politician of great words.  On the other hand we have a man married to one woman for decades, of immense character, who only after a remarkable career in business came to politics as a matter of service.  Not much a decision in my book.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Jerry L. Walls teaches philosophy at Houston Baptist University.  His PhD is from Notre Dame.  The author of several books and many articles, his most recent book is Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford University Press, 2011).  His co-authored book with David Baggett, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford University Press, 2011), was recently chosen as one of the outstanding books of 2011 by Christianity Today in their annual book awards.

JOHN NEWTON, NEWT GINGRICH AND THE REAL ISSUE FOR HIS CANDIDACY

Many conservative Christians are enthusiastically supporting Newt Gingrich for President, despite the fact that his personal lifestyle for most of his life has been sharply and starkly at odds with the values they profess to cherish.  As one who cannot share this enthusiasm I want to articulate what I believe the issue is here, and what it is not. First, it is emphatically not a matter of whether God, or we, have forgiven Newt. I am in no position to judge his heart or the sincerity of his repentance or the status of his relationship with God, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that his repentance is sincere and that God has forgiven him. The issue is not forgiveness, but rather character, and forgiveness is not the same as proven character. I believe rapists, murderers, child molesters, persons who fail to report suspected molesters, slave traders, and so on can all be forgiven. I believe in John Newton’s “Amazing Grace” and I well know we all need it. But I doubt anyone would argue that a rapist, a murderer, or a child molester should be running for President.

Not all sins are the same, despite the pious insistence that they are. Yes, “sins are sins,” and all separate us from God but some cut deeper and  do far more extensive damage to persons (starting with the persons who commit them), do far more to destroy relationships and undermine trust, and consequently require much more time and serious effort to repair.

Nor is the issue an unrealistic demand for perfection. No one has a perfect past, and few, if any have a perfect present. But it is a stunning impoverishment of standards to dismiss multiple lies, adulteries, and hypocrisies as mere foibles that fall just somewhere shy of perfection. While Newt was going hard after Clinton for his moral failures and campaigning on family values, he was engaged in an ongoing adulterous affair.

So again, am I suggesting we demand perfection of our candidates? Should we make an issue of every high school and college prank, indiscretion, drunken weekend, wild party, and so on?  Of course not. But we are not talking here about adolescent behavior, nor even about isolated failures. Rather, we are talking about his long term behavior as a mature adult, while holding elected office.

The fact that Newt thinks his history of moral and ethical infidelity is for all practical purposes irrelevant to his qualifications to be President, the fact that he can wax passionate with moral indignation against those who raise these issues, represents a wildly distorted sense of moral judgment and moral proportion.  When John King raised the issue, Newt responded that giving attention to his ex-wife’s comments two days before the primary, and opening the debate with that question was “as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”  The fact that he could use such extreme language shows he is either utterly lacking in moral imagination (I would guess any decent person, off the top of their head could come up with half a dozen things more despicable), or his reaction was a carefully calculated, and altogether successful, ploy to divert this issue by taking the role of a victim of the “liberal media.”  Ironically, in this exchange, he showed himself to be the mirror image of the postmodern who rejects traditional morality, but knows exactly how to draw a huge ovation from an audience by attacking intolerance with a sense of aggrieved outrage.

King David fell into adultery and he repented and was forgiven. Notably, when confronted with his adultery, he did not turn on Nathan, and say, “Seriously, I am appalled you can be making an issue of the fact that I banged Bathsheba, given the enormous political and economic issues facing this country.” David was forgiven. But he never regained the moral credibility he previously had, and after this incident, his Kingdom began to unravel in various ways, as Nathan predicted.  Indeed, it is surely no coincidence that we see this beginning to happen one chapter after Nathan’s confrontation with David, precisely in the form of his sons mimicking his worst behavior (2 Samuel 13).  Amnon rapes his half sister Tamar, and when David ignores the matter and does nothing about it, Tamar’s brother Absalom plots Amnon’s murder and successfully carries it out.  Given David’s adultery and devious murder of Bathsheba’s husband Uriah, he was poorly situated to confront his sons with any sort of moral credibility or hold them accountable for doing the very same sort of things he had done. The King inevitably set a moral tone for the nation, whether for good or for ill.  David eventually lost so much of his previous authority that his own son Absalom could successfully garner enough support to lead a rebellion and temporarily usurp the throne.

Again, I am not saying we should demand perfection of our leaders. If we insist on perfection or nothing, we will invariably get nothing. That is not my point. But we do need a President who can lead with moral authority and address moral issues with the sort of credibility that comes from a history of integrity. Newt has forfeited the ability to do that by his multiple betrayals and deceptions, and therefore the right to ask us to support him with election to our highest public office.

I believe Evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics are making a huge long term error in supporting Newt despite these obvious liabilities. For many, the bottom line is that Obama must be defeated. They relish the image of Newt waxing him in a debate. Well, their error is the mirror image of those who elected Obama in the first place. A man who had very thin credentials and experience was elected four years ago, largely on the strength of soaring rhetoric and wildly unrealistic promises. Now those who want to see him defeated are willing to support a guy who is lacking in moral substance but who is a great debater as well as a savvy politician.  The question is whether Christians should be willing to accept such a tradeoff.  Too many times Christians have been far too uncritical in supporting candidates who are willing to mouth support for their views or do an interview with Dobson or talk about God in a Baptist church, regardless of whether these candidates have shown by their actions any deep commitment to their values and convictions.

Many observers already believe conservative Christians are opportunistic hypocrites. Their support of Newt only confirms this impression and deprives them of any credibility if they ever want to make an issue of “traditional moral values” again.  As an obvious example, opponents of gay marriage, a flashpoint conservative issue, will find themselves in a very awkward position if they expect Newt to address this issue with credibility.   Indeed, supporters of gay marriage will understandably, and perhaps rightly, scorn conservative Christians who support Newt, and then turn around and try to make the case that homosexuality is a threat to the sanctity of marriage and traditional “family values.”  Let me be clear.  I believe homosexual behavior is condemned as sinful by scripture, and is morally wrong.  But the Bible has far more to say about adultery than it does about homosexuality.  Moreover, adultery is often used in the Bible as an illustration of idolatry, for it is a profound form of betrayal that deeply images our infidelity to God.   For adultery is by definition a lie as well as a treacherous form of personal betrayal.

Christians who can wink at Newt’s multiple adulteries, exacerbated by the specter of his hypocritical attack on Clinton while doing so, should not be surprised when supporters of gay marriage see them as mimicking the same sort of laughable hypocrisy if they try to make a moral issue of gay marriage.   They will understandably appear utterly arbitrary and unprincipled to their critics.

I am aware that for many conservative Christians, the foremost issue in this election is the economy, and the staggering national debt, an issue of great moral significance in its own right.  I could not agree more that the national debt is an issue of urgent importance and that the economy desperately needs better management.  But as urgent as these issues are, I do not believe they warrant the sort of compromise I believe conservative Christians are making in their support of Gingrich.

The bottom line for me: if Newt is the nominee, I will not be voting in November.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This is religious language, in different cloth.  Think about it.  As people of faith we start first with what is good – and then use politics as one of the tools to accomplish what is good.  In other words, faith first – political affiliation second.  Thus no self-respecting candidate that wants religious folks votes will take money from abortion providers – it’s legal, but not good.  Like wise, taking money from gambling interests is probably not a very smart idea for someone that wants the religious vote.

But that also means we are conservative because of faith, but conservatism is not our defining label or litmus test.  Some might say I have just fueled the fire of anti-Mormon sentiment, but nothing is further from the truth.   When two faith expressions lead to the same political positions, joint action is called for because once faith has determined the position, such unity is the most effective tool of politics.  But we can never confuse the political position with the faith that brought us to it – they are different things.

The candidate that understands this is the candidate that best represents faith in America.  Some candidates want to enhance the confusion between the political position and the faith because such creates a constructive interference pattern that can “push them over the top,” if you will.  But when you blur the line between faith and the resultant political position, faith becomes less important than it should be, and the political position more.  Faith and its religious expressions run the risk of becoming mere political tools instead of politics being their tool.

Newt Gingrich has clearly being conflating faith and politics.  This is evidenced in statements like this by Rush Limbaugh:

Why did those questions tee Newt up, and why did Newt know what to do with them?  Very simple. I’ve been doing this show for 23 years, and one of my themes from the beginning, from 1988, has been that the American conservative middle class are the ones playing by the rules.  They are the ones that obey the law to the best of their ability.  They raise their kids.  They try to shield their kids from cultural rot and depravity. They try to keep them off drugs. They try to get them into college. They follow as best they can all the rules and they’re laughed at and made fun of and they are impugned everywhere they look.  They go to the movies, they’re mocked and made fun of.  They turn on the radio, listen to music, they’re laughed at, mocked, and made fun of.  They turn on television, watch an average television show, they are laughed at, mocked and made fun of.  They open the newspaper, same thing.  They’ve had it. They’ve been dealing with this for over 20 years, and nobody’s fought back for ‘em. Not one person ever has fought back for ‘em.

All that he says is quite true, but much of what he notes are religious issues, not governmental ones.  How do we shield “kids from cultural rot and depravity?”  We give them faith to withstand it.  And what about being mocked?  Well, consider the words of Christ:

Matt 5:10 -  “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (NAS)

Our faith give us the tools to handle those things which our government cannot or is not.  When we look to government to solves things that religion should solve then we are building a government much bigger than it should be, and in the process weakening our faith.

Then there is the question of HOW we do fight back when we should.  Consider this bit of wisdom:

Prov 27:22 – Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him. (NAS)

Newt Gingrich’s protestations about how despicable the media is may have felt good, but did it change the minds of those that agree with the media?  Or this other bit of wisdom:

Prov 18:2 – A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind. (NAS)

By playing with the forces Limbaugh identifies, Gingrich calls us to wallow in our own foolishness, rather than to wisely and smartly deal with the situation at hand.

Part of what I look for in a political leader is one that will call me to my higher nature, not my baser one.  One that expects me to behave wisely, not encourages me to behave foolishly.  I look for a political leader that will not seek to conflate my religious life with my political one for the sake of his political position, but will allow my religious life to flourish, informing and shaping me into a better person.

Between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich – Mitt Romney is clearly that kind of political leader.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

In a one-on-one interview with The Brody File, Newt Gingrich says that he has “not hidden from the facts of my life, that I have confessed my weaknesses” and he believes that, in part, is a reason why evangelicals are able to get behind his candidacy.

He goes on to say that, “it may make me more normal than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect and maybe not understanding the human condition, and the challenges of life for normal people.”

That one elicits a “WOW” from this Evangelical.  See the lost but found narrative is but the beginning of what we like to call “the gospel,” the good news of what Jesus did.  It is a notable weakness of Evangelicalism that they often forget to push on farther into the depths of all that Jesus offers us – that is something that I write about with great regularity on my “Godblog.”

As is becoming common when I read something about Gingrich, scripture comes to mind.  In this case it is the benediction that the Apostles Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Phillipi:

Phil 4:8-9 – Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.  The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you. (NAS)

Now when I read something like that and I think about who I would like standing in front of the nation on a routine basis, I would much rather have someone that has truly focused on the good stuff as opposed to someone that has had to pull themselves out of the bad and might just fall back in at a moments notice.

It is true that Gingrich looks more “average” than Romney, but consider about the bell curve when you think about that.  That simply means Gingrich has made a lot more mistakes than Romney has.  Are we really a nation that wants to be merely average.  As Christians, we see the Apostle Paul calling us to the far right side of the bell curve – we are not called to be average, we are called to excellence.  Remember being graded “on a curve?”  Was a C, even a C+ really the grade you wanted?

But there is another aspect to Gingrich’s comments that needs to be addressed, and that is his crack, “maybe not understanding the human condition.” One has to remember that the “human condition” is not the failing, corrupt condition we find ourselves in – the situation that we find ourselves in results from what theologians call “the fall.”  We were not made for this imperfection – we were made for the perfection of first creation.

And finally, how dare Gingrich imply that Romney is somehow less than human?  Again, the Apostle Paul:

Rom 14:4 – Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (NAS)

Romney’s “master” holds him to a high standard, but how does that make him unfamiliar with the human condition?

All that does is make him some one that perhaps overcame his baser nature earlier in his life than someone like Gingrich – which also means he may be a bit farther down the road than those of us that got a later start.  That is pretty much the definition of a leader, and I think that is what this nation needs most.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I’m willing to take Gingrich at his word. I think he honestly believes his work had nothing to do with lobbying. I think he could take a lie detector test and declare that he was hired for his wisdom, public policy, and historical knowledge, and the needle wouldn’t budge. The biggest problem here isn’t the lie he’s telling to us; it’s the lie he’s telling to himself.

What did Freddie Mac really want from Gingrich? Cynics (waving my hand) will suspect that the organization, full of lifelong professional Democrats such as Franklin Raines and with close ties to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Christopher Dodd, wanted a prominent Republican name around to stick up for them. He was the fig-leaf/token Republican who enabled them to argue that they had bipartisan support.But even aside from that angle, Gingrich isn’t being honest with himself about what he was doing. The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney notes that legally, Gingrich was lobbying.

[...]

The Romney campaign will argue that Gingrich’s defenses on Freddie Mac are cynical lies, while ignoring the much, much more disturbing and damaging interpretation: Gingrich actually believes them.

That brought to mind another point that needs to be made as we try to Rephrase The Question.  Consider the words of Jeremiah the Old Testament prophet:

Jer 14:1 -  That which came as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah in regard to the drought:

Jer 14:13-16 – But, “Ah, Lord GOD!” I said, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword nor will you have famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’”   Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.  “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who are prophesying in My name, although it was not I who sent them– yet they keep saying, ‘There shall be no sword or famine in this land’– by sword and famine those prophets shall meet their end!  “The people also to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and there will be no one to bury them– {neither} them, {nor} their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters– for I shall pour out their {own} wickedness on them.  (NAS) [EMPHASIS ADDED]

I don’t want to get all balled up in the details here – that scripture has one important message – if we follow people that are fooling themselves, we ourselves are being fooled, and will have earned the consequences of such foolishness.

Now compare Gingrich’s self-deception regarding his service at Freddie Mac with Mitt Romney’s absolute refusal to “deny” Massachusetts healthcare.  As I later read through last night’s debate tweets I saw numerous calls, once again, for Romney to repudiate what happened while he was Governor.  But to do so, Romney would have to fool himself about what he did and why he did it.

Unpopular as Massachusetts healthcare may be, Romney is clearly the sober-minded realist here.  And so, when it comes to this particular measure of faith, once again Romney seems to be the choice over Gingrich.

<

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Some people think it was all about the Mormon issue.   Many note the issue mattered, but opinions vary on how much.  Some think it is all about the anger.  The left, of course, just wants to make us look stupid – or weird (gee that’s a shock!)  One thing you can know for sure, the Obama administration and their allies are working very, very hard to capitalize on this situation.

We have spent 6 years at this blog trying to make sure that Mitt Romney’s religion did not stand in the way of his nomination -at least in theory.  In doing so we have presumed that we were in fact clearing the decks for all of religion to maintain, even strengthen, its political voice.  In some sense, I am concerned that we have created this chaos.

In the film 2001: A Space Odyessy we get to watch a computer lose its mind.  It is confronted with directly conflicting instructions and responds in an unpredictable fashion that turns disastrous for the crew of the space ship it is managing.  Since Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations have been public there has been enormous debate about what role if any his religion should play in his candidacy and in the mind of voters considering him.  For many the constitution says they cannot consider his faith, while their religious leaders tell them they are not good religious adherents if they DO NOT consider it.

The cognitive dissonance becomes even stronger when you consider the choices currently confronting such people – the morally upstanding and courageous, but theologically errant Mitt Romney or the philandering (formerly as far as we know), formerly check kiting, potential future bomb carrying, failed former Speaker of the House that says all the right things.  Both seem like lousy choices to them.

Politically, Gingrich has some extraordinary weaknesses.  Some think there is much more at stake that just this election.  One young friend, a Romney opponent, thinks a Gingrich nomination will cost Republicans at least 2 generations of religious voters.  Even the left notes the similarities between Gingrich and Obama.

But many religious voices feel like it is more important to be “right” than win.

In light of all this we want to take a different approach at this blog for a while.  Rather than ask if religion should matter – we are going to ask HOW religion should matter – and how much.  Both candidates we are confronted with have religious positives and negatives.  They need to be analyzed and considered.  We invite reader input as well.  Tell us what you think in the comments.

There are a lot of questions that can be asked here.  Is it really better to be right than to win?  Are those really different things?  Does forgiving someone mean you have to vote for them?  What is the relationship between reason and faith?

Most importantly, as a person of faith, who do I vote for – Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney, and why?

And so with that introduction, let me dive in

When It Comes to Faith, How We Act Matters More Than What We Say

If there is any word you hear about most right now, it is “authenticity.”  Is your faith authentic?  Is Mitt Romney authentic?  In my day we talked about “hypocrisy.”  Our parents told us not to drink while pouring their evening martini.  Religious faith has to make a difference in what we do, not merely what we say or profess, or else it’s claims look like lies.

Based on that standard, Mitt Romney is the guy to vote for, hands down.  Newt Gingrich may have indeed reformed and may no longer be doing anything like the long list of improprieties that he carries on his CV, but there is one problem.  Any person that has overcome the kinds of deep problems that Newt Gingrich claims to have overcome (Take your choice, his philandering or his fiscal improprieties) knows that there are some places you simply cannot go to avoid the temptation to slip back into old habits.

I’ll use myself as an example – I have mentioned before on this blog that I used to weigh over 400 pounds.  I don’t any more, but you can bet your bottom dollar I work awfully doggone hard NOT to get near a buffet.  I may have my weight under control, more or less, but some five years later, that control remains quite tenuous.

Political power was deeply a part of the problems that Newt Gingrich claims to have overcome.  His effort to reach for that power once again is very similar to me stepping through the doors of a buffet.  I might even be able to survive a single visit, but setting up camp in a buffet, like Gingrich would do in the White House, would be more than I could possibly withstand.  Any person that is honest about their issues knows that.

One slip up on Gingrich’s part and suddenly his recovery and the faith that he claims generated it no longer looks authentic.  Religion suffers.

Mitt Romney, whatever his weaknesses may be, does not suffer from the kind of moral lapses, even in the past, that Newt Gingrich suffers from.  He will not be confronted with the temptations that Gingrich will face.  Mitt Romney’s life will not put the authenticity of religion into question.

I am happy for the advances Gingrich has made in his personal life.  I hope they stick.  I fact, I pray for it.  But given how precarious the voice of faith is in the public square there is too much at stake to trust that he can continue to resist temptation when it is placed in his lap.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I was doing my usual morning reading today and Hugh Hewitt quoted Rick Santorum from last night’s debate, “Grandiosity Has Never Been A Problem With Newt Gingrich,” and then after some good analysis, reprinted a release from the Romney campaign with a number of Gingrich quotes.  Here is a small sample:

• “I Have An Enormous Personal Ambition. I Want To Shift The Entire Planet. And I’m Doing It. … I Represent Real Power.” (Lois Romano, “Newt Gingrich, Maverick On The Hill,” The Washington Post, 1/3/85)

• “I First Talked About [Saving Civilization] In August Of 1958.” (Robert Draper, “He’s Baaack!” GQ, 8/05)

• The Duke Of Wellington: “Obsessed recently with Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, [Gingrich] likened the appropriations triumph to the way the British expeditionary force maneuvered against the French during the Peninsular War, a campaign in Portugal and Spain in the early 1800s that eventually led to Wellington’s ascendance and Napoleon’s abdication.” (Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, “In A Moment Of Crisis, The Speaker Persuades,” The Washington Post, 8/13/95)

Read the whole thing.  As I read that, and reread it just to be sure, scripture kept coming to mind:

Phil 2:3-7 -  Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.  Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,… (NAS)

I let you dear reader draw your own connections and conclusions – but it is worth thinking about what it means to be “Christian” in light of these quotations.

©2012 Article VI Blog. All Rights Reserved.